Old/New Testament
22 Then the Lord said to me: Go over and speak directly to the king of Judah and say, 2 Listen to this message from God, O king of Judah, sitting on David’s throne; and let your servants and your people listen too.
3 The Lord says: Be fair-minded. Do what is right! Help those in need of justice! Quit your evil deeds! Protect the rights of aliens and immigrants, orphans and widows; stop murdering the innocent! 4 If you put an end to all these terrible deeds you are doing, then I will deliver this nation and once more give kings to sit on David’s throne, and there shall be prosperity for all. 5 But if you refuse to pay attention to this warning, I swear by my own name, says the Lord, that this palace shall become a shambles.
6 For this is the Lord’s message concerning the palace: You are as beloved to me as fruitful Gilead and the green forests of Lebanon; but I will destroy you and leave you deserted and uninhabited. 7 I will call for a wrecking crew to bring out its tools to dismantle you. They will tear out all of your fine cedar beams and throw them on the fire. 8 Men from many nations will pass by the ruins of this city and say to one another, “Why did the Lord do it? Why did he destroy such a great city?” 9 And the answer will be, “Because the people living here forgot the Lord their God and violated his agreement with them, for they worshiped idols.”
10 Don’t weep for the dead! Instead weep for the captives led away! For they will never return to see their native land again. 11 For the Lord says this about Jehoahaz who succeeded his father[a] King Josiah and was taken away as a captive: 12 He shall die in a distant land[b] and never again see his own country.
13 And woe to you, King Jehoiakim,[c] for you are building your great palace with forced labor. By not paying wages you are building injustice into its walls and oppression into its doorframes and ceilings. 14 You say, “I will build a magnificent palace with huge rooms and many windows, paneled throughout with fragrant cedar and painted a lovely red.” 15 But a beautiful palace does not make a great king! Why did your father Josiah reign so long? Because he was just and fair in all his dealings. That is why God blessed him. 16 He saw to it that justice and help were given the poor and the needy and all went well for him. This is how a man lives close to God. 17 But you! You are full of selfish greed and all dishonesty! You murder the innocent, oppress the poor, and reign with ruthlessness.
18 Therefore this is God’s decree of punishment against King Jehoiakim, who succeeded his father Josiah on the throne: His family will not weep for him when he dies. His subjects will not even care that he is dead. 19 He shall be buried like a dead donkey—dragged out of Jerusalem and thrown on the garbage dump beyond the gate! 20 Weep, for your allies are gone. Search for them in Lebanon; shout for them at Bashan; seek them at the fording points of Jordan. See, they are all destroyed. Not one is left to help you! 21 When you were prosperous, I warned you, but you replied, “Don’t bother me.” Since childhood you have been that way—you just won’t listen! 22 And now all your allies have disappeared with a puff of wind; all your friends are taken off as slaves. Surely at last you will see your wickedness and be ashamed. 23 It’s very nice to live graciously in a beautiful palace among the cedars of Lebanon, but soon you will cry and groan in anguish—anguish as of a woman in labor.
24-25 And as for you, Coniah,[d] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah—even if you were the signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off and give you to those who seek to kill you, of whom you are so desperately afraid—to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his mighty army. 26 I will throw you and your mother out of this country, and you shall die in a foreign land. 27 You will never again return to the land of your desire. 28 This man Coniah is like a discarded, broken dish. He and his children will be exiled to distant lands.
29 O earth, earth, earth! Hear the word of the Lord! 30 The Lord says: Record this man Coniah as childless, for none of his children shall ever sit upon the throne of David or rule in Judah.[e] His life will amount to nothing.
23 The Lord declares:
I will send disaster upon the leaders of my people—the shepherds of my sheep—for they have destroyed and scattered the very ones they were to care for. 2 Instead of leading my flock to safety, you have deserted them and driven them to destruction. And now I will pour out judgment upon you for the evil you have done to them. 3 And I will gather together the remnant of my flock from wherever I have sent them and bring them back into their own fold, and they shall be fruitful and increase. 4 And I will appoint responsible shepherds to care for them, and they shall not need to be afraid again; all of them shall be accounted for continually.
5-6 For the time is coming, says the Lord, when I will place a righteous Branch upon King David’s throne. He shall be a King who shall rule with wisdom and justice and cause righteousness to prevail everywhere throughout the earth.[f] And this is his name: The Lord Our Righteousness. At that time Judah will be saved and Israel will live in peace.
7 In that day people will no longer say when taking an oath, “As the Lord lives who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt,” 8 but they will say, “As the Lord lives who brought the Jews back to their own land of Israel from the countries to which he had exiled them.”
9 My heart is broken for the false prophets, full of deceit. I awake with fear and stagger as a drunkard does from wine because of the awful fate awaiting them,[g] for God has decreed holy words of judgment against them. 10 For the land is full of adultery, and the curse of God is on it. The land itself is mourning—the pastures are dried up—for the prophets do evil, and their power is used wrongly.
11 The priests are like the prophets, all ungodly, wicked men. I have seen their despicable acts right here in my own Temple, says the Lord. 12 Therefore, their paths will be dark and slippery; they will be chased down dark and treacherous trails and fall. For I will bring evil upon them and see to it, when their time has come, that they pay their penalty in full for all their sins.
13 I knew the prophets of Samaria were unbelievably evil, for they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel into sin; 14 but the prophets of Jerusalem are even worse! The things they do are horrible; they commit adultery and love dishonesty. They encourage and compliment those who are doing evil instead of turning them back from their sins. These prophets are as thoroughly depraved as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were.
15 Therefore the Lord Almighty says: I will feed them with bitterness and give them poison to drink. For it is because of them that wickedness fills this land. 16 This is my warning to my people, says the Lord Almighty. Don’t listen to these false prophets when they prophesy to you, filling you with futile hopes. They are making up everything they say. They do not speak for me! 17 They keep saying to these rebels who despise me, “Don’t worry! All is well!”; and to those who live the way they want to, “The Lord has said you shall have peace!”
18 But can you name even one of these prophets who lives close enough to God to hear what he is saying? Has even one of them cared enough to listen? 19 See, the Lord is sending a furious whirlwind to sweep away these wicked men. 20 The terrible anger of the Lord will not abate until it has carried out the full penalty he decrees against them. Later, when Jerusalem has fallen,[h] you will see what I mean.
21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they claim to speak for me; I gave them no message, yet they say their words are mine. 22 If they were mine, they would try to turn my people from their evil ways. 23 Am I a God who is only in one place and cannot see what they are doing? 24 Can anyone hide from me? Am I not everywhere in all of heaven and earth?
25 “Listen to the dream I had from God last night,” they say. And then they proceed to lie in my name. 26 How long will this continue? If they are “prophets,” they are prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say. 27 By telling these false dreams they are trying to get my people to forget me in the same way as their fathers did, who turned away to the idols of Baal. 28 Let these false prophets tell their dreams and let my true messengers faithfully proclaim my every word. There is a difference between chaff and wheat! 29 Does not my word burn like fire? asks the Lord. Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashed the rock to pieces? 30-31 So I stand against these “prophets” who get their messages from each other—these smooth-tongued “prophets” who say, “This message is from God!” 32 Their made-up dreams are flagrant lies that lead my people into sin. I did not send them, and they have no message at all for my people, says the Lord.
33 When one of the people or one of their “prophets” or priests asks you, “Well, Jeremiah, what is the sad news from the Lord today?” you shall reply, “What sad news? You are the sad news, for the Lord has cast you away!” 34 And as for the false prophets and priests and people who joke about “today’s sad news from God,” I will punish them and their families for saying this. 35 You can ask each other, “What is God’s message? What is he saying?” 36 But stop using this term, “God’s sad news.” For what is sad is you and your lying. You are twisting my words and inventing “messages from God” that I didn’t speak. 37 You may respectfully ask Jeremiah, “What is the Lord’s message? What has he said to you?” 38-39 But if you ask him about “today’s sad news from God,” when I have warned you not to mock like that, then I, the Lord God, will unburden myself of the burden[i] you are to me. I will cast you out of my presence, you and this city I gave to you and your fathers. 40 And I will bring reproach upon you and your name shall be infamous through the ages.
1 1-2 From: Paul, the slave of God and the messenger of Jesus Christ.
I have been sent to bring faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know God’s truth—the kind of truth that changes lives—so that they can have eternal life, which God promised them before the world began—and he cannot lie. 3 And now in his own good time he has revealed this Good News and permits me to tell it to everyone. By command of God our Savior, I have been trusted to do this work for him.
4 To: Titus, who is truly my son in the affairs of the Lord.
May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior give you his blessings and his peace.
5 I left you there on the island of Crete so that you could do whatever was needed to help strengthen each of its churches, and I asked you to appoint pastors[a] in every city who would follow the instructions I gave you. 6 The men you choose must be well thought of for their good lives; they must have only one wife and their children must love the Lord and not have a reputation for being wild or disobedient to their parents.
7 These pastors must be men of blameless lives because they are God’s ministers. They must not be proud or impatient; they must not be drunkards or fighters or greedy for money. 8 They must enjoy having guests in their homes and must love all that is good. They must be sensible men, and fair. They must be clean minded and level headed. 9 Their belief in the truth that they have been taught must be strong and steadfast so that they will be able to teach it to others and show those who disagree with them where they are wrong.
10 For there are many who refuse to obey; this is especially true among those who say that all Christians must obey the Jewish laws. But this is foolish talk; it blinds people to the truth, 11 and it must be stopped. Already whole families have been turned away from the grace of God. Such teachers are only after your money. 12 One of their own men, a prophet from Crete, has said about them, “These men of Crete are all liars; they are like lazy animals, living only to satisfy their stomachs.” 13 And this is true. So speak to the Christians there as sternly as necessary to make them strong in the faith 14 and to stop them from listening to Jewish folk tales and the demands of men who have turned their backs on the truth.
15 A person who is pure of heart sees goodness and purity in everything; but a person whose own heart is evil and untrusting finds evil in everything, for his dirty mind and rebellious heart color all he sees and hears. 16 Such persons claim they know God, but from seeing the way they act, one knows they don’t. They are rotten and disobedient, worthless so far as doing anything good is concerned.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.