The Daily Audio Bible

The False Prophet Hananiah

28 In the fifth month of the fourth year that Zedekiah^[a] was king of Judah, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur spoke to me. Hananiah was from the town of Gibeon. Hananiah was in the Lord’s Temple when he spoke to me. The priests and all the people were there also. This is what Hananiah said: ² “The Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says: ‘I will break the yoke that the king of Babylon has put on the people of Judah. ³ Before two years are over, I will bring back all the things that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from the Lord’s Temple. Nebuchadnezzar has carried those things to Babylon. But I will bring them back here to Jerusalem. ⁴ I will also bring the king of Judah, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, back to this place. And I will bring back all the people of Judah that Nebuchadnezzar forced to leave their homes and go to Babylon,’ says the Lord. ‘So I will break the yoke that the king of Babylon put on the people of Judah.’”

⁵ Then the prophet Jeremiah answered the prophet Hananiah. They were standing in the Temple of the Lord. The priests and all the people there could hear Jeremiah’s answer. ⁶ Jeremiah said to Hananiah, “Amen! May the Lord do that. May the Lord make the message you say come true. May he bring the things of the Lord’s Temple back to this place from Babylon. And may he bring all those who were forced to leave their homes back to this place.

⁷ “But listen to what I have to say to you and to all the people. ⁸ There were prophets long before you and I became prophets, Hananiah. They spoke against many countries and great kingdoms and always warned that war, hunger, and disease would come to them. ⁹ So the prophet who says that we will have peace must be tested. People can know that he really was sent by the Lord only if his message comes true.”

¹⁰ Jeremiah was wearing a yoke around his neck. The prophet Hananiah took the yoke from Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. ¹¹ Then Hananiah spoke loudly so that all the people could hear him. He said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘In the same way, I will break the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He put that yoke on all the nations of the world, but I will break it before two years are over.’”

After Hananiah said that, Jeremiah left the Temple.

¹² Then the message from the Lord came to Jeremiah. This happened after Hananiah had taken the yoke off Jeremiah’s neck and had broken it. ¹³ The Lord said to Jeremiah, “Go and tell Hananiah that this is what the Lord says: ‘You have broken a wooden yoke, but I will make a yoke of iron in the place of the wooden yoke. ¹⁴ The Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, is the one saying this. I will put a yoke of iron on the necks of all these nations. I will do that to make them serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and they will be slaves to him. I will even give Nebuchadnezzar control over the wild animals.’”

¹⁵ Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you. But you have made the people of Judah trust in lies. ¹⁶ So this is what the Lord says: ‘Soon I will take you from this world, Hananiah. You will die this year, because you taught the people to turn against the Lord.’”

¹⁷ Hananiah died in the seventh month of that same year.

A Letter to the Captives in Babylon

29 Jeremiah sent a letter to the captives in Babylon. He sent it to the elders, the priests, the prophets, and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem to Babylon. ² (This letter was sent after King Jehoiachin, the queen mother, the officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the carpenters, and the metalworkers had been taken from Jerusalem.) ³ King Zedekiah of Judah sent Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah to King Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah gave them the letter to take to Babylon. This is what the letter said:

⁴ This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says to all the people he sent into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ “Build houses and live in them. Settle in the land. Plant gardens and eat the food you grow. ⁶ Get married and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons, and let your daughters be married. Do this so that they also may have sons and daughters. Have many children and grow in number in Babylon. Don’t become fewer in number. ⁷ Also, do good things for the city I sent you to. Pray to the Lord for the city you are living in, because if there is peace in that city, you will have peace also.” ⁸ The Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says, “Don’t let your prophets and those who practice magic fool you. Don’t listen to the dreams they have. ⁹ They are telling lies, and they are saying that their message is from me. But I didn’t send it.” This message is from the Lord.

¹⁰ This is what the Lord says: “Babylon will be powerful for 70 years. After that time, I will come to you people who are living in Babylon. I will keep my good promise to bring you back to Jerusalem. ¹¹ I say this because I know the plans that I have for you.” This message is from the Lord. “I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future. ¹² Then you will call my name. You will come to me and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will search for me, and when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me. ¹⁴ I will let you find me.” This message is from the Lord. “And I will bring you back from your captivity. I forced you to leave this place. But I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have sent you,” says the Lord, “and I will bring you back to this place.”

¹⁵ You people might say, “But the Lord has given us prophets here in Babylon.” ¹⁶ But this is what the Lord says about your relatives who were not carried away to Babylon. I am talking about the king who is sitting on David’s throne now and all the other people who are still in the city of Jerusalem. ¹⁷ The Lord All-Powerful says, “I will soon bring war, hunger, and disease against those who are still in Jerusalem. And I will make them the same as bad figs that are too rotten to eat. ¹⁸ I will attack those who are still in Jerusalem with war, hunger, and disease. And I will cause such pain that all the kingdoms of the earth will be frightened at what has happened to those people. They will be destroyed. People will whistle with amazement when they hear what happened. And people will use them as an example when they ask for bad things to happen to people. People will insult them wherever I force them to go. ¹⁹ I will make all these things happen because the people of Jerusalem have not listened to my message.” This message is from the Lord. “I sent my message to them again and again. I used my servants, the prophets, to give my messages to them, but they didn’t listen.” This message is from the Lord. ²⁰ “You people are captives. I forced you to leave Jerusalem and go to Babylon. So listen to the message from the Lord.”

²¹ This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah: “These two men have been telling you lies. They have said that their message is from me. I will give these two prophets to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And he will kill them in front of all you who are captives in Babylon. ²² They will be an example of a terrible way to die. Yes, in the future, when the Jewish captives want something bad to happen to someone, they will say this curse: ‘May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, those men the king of Babylon burned in the fire!’ ²³ They did very bad things among the people of Israel. They committed the sin of adultery with their neighbors’ wives. They also spoke lies and said those lies were a message from me. I did not tell them to do that. I know what they have done. I am a witness.” This message is from the Lord.

God’s Message to Shemaiah

²⁴ Also give a message to Shemaiah from the Nehelam family. ²⁵ This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “Shemaiah, you sent letters to all the people in Jerusalem and to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah. You also sent letters to all the priests. You sent those letters in your own name and not by my authority. ²⁶ Shemaiah, this is what you said in your letter to Zephaniah: ‘Zephaniah, the Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada. You are to be in charge of the Lord’s Temple. You should arrest anyone who acts like a crazy person^[b] and acts like a prophet. You should put that person’s feet between large blocks of wood and put neck irons^[c] on him. ²⁷ Now Jeremiah is acting like a prophet. So why didn’t you arrest him? ²⁸ Jeremiah has sent this message to us in Babylon: You people in Babylon will be there for a long time, so build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what you grow.’”

²⁹ Zephaniah the priest read the letter to Jeremiah the prophet. ³⁰ Then this message from the Lord came to Jeremiah: ³¹ “Jeremiah, send this message to all the captives in Babylon: ‘This is what the Lord says about Shemaiah, the man from the Nehelam family: Shemaiah has spoken to you, but I didn’t send him. He has made you believe a lie. ³² Because Shemaiah has done that, this is what the Lord says: I will soon punish Shemaiah, the man from the Nehelam family. I will completely destroy his family, and he will not share in the good things I will do for my people.’” This message is from the Lord. “‘I will punish Shemaiah because he has taught the people to turn against the Lord.’”

1 Greetings from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am an apostle by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope.

² To Timothy, a true son to me in the faith we share.

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Warnings Against False Teachings

³ When I went to Macedonia, I asked you to stay in Ephesus. Some people there are teaching things that are not true, and I want you to tell them to stop. ⁴ Tell them not to give their time to meaningless stories and to long lists of names to prove their family histories. Such things only cause arguments. They don’t help God’s work, which is done only by faith. ⁵ My purpose in telling you to do this is to promote love—the kind of love shown by those whose thoughts are pure, who do what they know is right, and whose faith in God is real. ⁶ But some have missed this key point in their teaching and have gone off in another direction. Now they talk about things that help no one. ⁷ They want to be teachers of the law,^[a] but they don’t know what they are talking about. They don’t even understand the things they say they are sure of.

⁸ We know that the law is good if someone uses it right. ⁹ We also know that the law is not made for those who do what is right. It is made for those who are against the law and refuse to follow it. The law is for sinners who are against God and all that is pleasing to him. It is for those who have no interest in spiritual things and for those who kill their fathers or mothers or anyone else. ¹⁰ It is for those who commit sexual sins, homosexuals, those who sell slaves, those who tell lies, those who don’t tell the truth under oath, and those who are against the true teaching of God. ¹¹ That teaching is part of the Good News that our blessed God gave me to tell. In it we see his glory.

Thanks for God’s Mercy

¹² I thank Christ Jesus our Lord because he trusted me and gave me this work of serving him. He gives me strength. ¹³ In the past I insulted Christ. As a proud and violent man, I persecuted his people. But God gave me mercy because I did not know what I was doing. I did that before I became a believer. ¹⁴ But our Lord gave me a full measure of his grace. And with that grace came the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ Here is a true statement that should be accepted without question: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them. ¹⁶ But I was given mercy so that in me Christ Jesus could show that he has patience without limit. Christ showed his patience with me, the worst of all sinners. He wanted me to be an example for those who would believe in him and have eternal life. ¹⁷ Honor and glory to the King who rules forever. He cannot be destroyed and cannot be seen. Honor and glory forever and ever to the only God. Amen.

¹⁸ Timothy, you are like a son to me. What I am telling you to do agrees with the prophecies^[b] that were told about you in the past. I want you to remember those prophecies and fight the good fight of faith. ¹⁹ Continue to trust in God and do what you know is right. Some people have not done this, and their faith is now in ruins. ²⁰ Hymenaeus and Alexander are men like that. I have given them to Satan so that they will learn not to speak against God.

A prayer of David.

¹⁷ And don’t visit your neighbors’ homes too often, or they will begin to hate you.