Old/New Testament

The Fall of Jerusalem

Chapter 34

Zedekiah Condemned. ¹ While Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and his entire army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the people in the empire he ruled were waging war against Jerusalem and all its towns, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² Go forth to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and say to him: Thus says the Lord: I intend to hand over this city to the king of Babylon, and he will order that it be burned to the ground. ³ And you yourself will not escape his clutches, for there is no doubt that you will be captured and delivered into his hands. With your own eyes you will see the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you face to face. Then you will go to Babylon.

⁴ But even so, listen to the promise of the Lord to you, Zedekiah, king of Judah. This is what the Lord promises in your regard: You will not die by the sword. ⁵ Rather, you will die a peaceful death. And just as the people burned spices in honor of your ancestors, the kings who preceded you, so they will mourn your passing and burn spices for you, as they lament, “Alas, O king.” I myself have made this promise, says the Lord.

⁶ The prophet Jeremiah revealed all these things to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, in Jerusalem ⁷ while the army of the king of Babylon was attacking Jerusalem and the remaining cities of Judah that were left, Lachish and Azekah,^[a] for these were the only fortified cities of Judah that were still standing.

The Broken Promise. ⁸ This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to issue a proclamation of freedom for their slaves. ⁹ Everyone who had Hebrew slaves, whether male or female, was to grant them freedom, and no one would be allowed to keep a fellow Jew in the state of slavery.

¹⁰ All of the officials and the people who entered into this agreement, swearing that they would set free their male and female slaves so that they would not again be enslaved, obeyed and granted them their freedom. ¹¹ Afterward, however, they changed their minds and once again forced back into slavery those to whom they had granted their freedom.

¹² Then this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ¹³ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery, saying, ¹⁴ “Every seventh year each one of you must set free any Hebrew who has sold himself to you as a slave and has served you for six years.”

Your fathers, however, did not listen to me or obey me. ¹⁵ Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight by proclaiming that freedom was to be given to your brethren and even making a covenant with me in the house that bears my name. ¹⁶ Now, however, you have renounced that agreement and profaned my name when each of you took back the male and female slaves to whom you had granted freedom and forced them once again to be your slaves.

¹⁷ Therefore, thus says the Lord: Inasmuch as you have not obeyed me and refused to grant deliverance to your neighbors and kinsmen, now I will proclaim deliverance for you—deliverance to the sword, to plague, and to famine. I will make you an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ As for those who have violated my covenant and refused to observe the terms of the covenant to which they agreed in my presence, I will treat them like the calf which they cut in two and then passed between its pieces.^{[b] 19} The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf ²⁰ will be handed over to their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the animals of the earth.

²¹ As for Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and his officials, I will hand them over to their enemies who seek their lives and to the army of the king of Babylon which has withdrawn from you. ²² I will issue the command, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to this city. They will attack it and capture it and burn it to the ground. And I will turn the towns of Judah into a desolate wasteland where no one dwells.

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^[c] 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^[d]

Baruch Writes the Prophecies on a Scroll.^{[e] 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 2

The Oneness of Christian Salvation.^{[a] 1} Therefore, we should pay much closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away. ² For if the message delivered by angels proved to be so valid that every transgression and disobedience brought a proper punishment, ³ how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?

It was first announced by the Lord and then confirmed for us by those who heard him. ⁴ God also testified to it by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Christ Our Brother.^{[b] 5} For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. ⁶ But someone has offered this testimony somewhere:

Now in putting everything under his feet, he left nothing that is not subject to his control. Right now we do not yet see everything under his feet. ⁹ However, we do see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

¹⁰ In bringing many sons to glory, it was completely fitting that he, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. ¹¹ Both the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all proceed from one Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them brethren, ¹² saying,

¹³ And again,

And again,

¹⁴ Therefore, since the children are all made of flesh and blood,^[d] Jesus likewise shared in the same flesh and blood, so that by his death he might destroy the one who has the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵ and set free those who throughout their lives had been held in slavery by the fear of death.

¹⁶ For clearly he did not come to help angels but rather he came to help the descendants of Abraham. ¹⁷ Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in every way in order that he might become a compassionate and faithful high priest before God and expiate the sins of the people. ¹⁸ Because he himself was tested by suffering, he is able to help those who are being tested.