Old/New Testament

40 Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, took Jeremiah to Ramah along with all the exiled people of Jerusalem and Judah who were being sent to Babylon, but then released him.

^2-3 The captain called for Jeremiah and said, “The Lord your God has brought this disaster on this land, just as he said he would. For these people have sinned against the Lord. That is why it happened. ⁴ Now I am going to take off your chains and let you go. If you want to come with me to Babylon, fine; I will see that you are well cared for. But if you don’t want to come, don’t. The world is before you—go where you like. ⁵ If you decide to stay, then return to Gedaliah, who has been appointed as governor of Judah by the king of Babylon, and stay with the remnant he rules. But it’s up to you; go where you like.”

Then Nebuzaradan gave Jeremiah some food and money and let him go. ⁶ So Jeremiah returned to Gedaliah and lived in Judah with the people left in the land.

⁷ Now when the leaders of the Jewish guerrilla bands in the countryside heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor over the poor of the land who were left behind, and had not exiled everyone to Babylon, ⁸ they came to see Gedaliah at Mizpah, where his headquarters were. These are the names of the leaders who came: Ishmael (son of Nethaniah), Johanan and Jonathan (sons of Kareah), Seraiah (son of Tanhumeth), the sons of Ephai (the Netophathite), Jezaniah (son of a Maacathite), and their men. ⁹ And Gedaliah assured them that it would be safe to surrender to the Babylonians.

“Stay here and serve the king of Babylon,” he said, “and all will go well for you. ¹⁰ As for me, I will stay at Mizpah and intercede for you with the Babylonians who will come here to oversee my administration. Settle in any city you wish and live off the land. Harvest the grapes and summer fruits and olives and store them away.”

¹¹ When the Jews in Moab and among the Ammonites and in Edom and the other nearby countries heard that a few people were still left in Judah, and that the king of Babylon had not taken them all away, and that Gedaliah was the governor, ¹² they all began to return to Judah from the many places to which they had fled. They stopped at Mizpah to discuss their plans with Gedaliah and then went out to the deserted farms and gathered a great harvest of wine grapes and other crops.

^13-14 But soon afterwards Johanan (son of Kareah) and the other guerrilla leaders came to Mizpah to warn Gedaliah that Baalis, king of the Ammonites, had sent Ishmael (son of Nethaniah) to assassinate him. But Gedaliah wouldn’t believe them. ¹⁵ Then Johanan had a private conference with Gedaliah. Johanan volunteered to kill Ishmael secretly.

“Why should we let him come and murder you?” Johanan asked. “What will happen then to the Jews who have returned? Why should this remnant be scattered and lost?”

¹⁶ But Gedaliah said, “I forbid you to do any such thing, for you are lying about Ishmael.”

41 But in October, Ishmael (son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama), who was a member of the royal family and one of the king’s top officials, arrived in Mizpah, accompanied by ten men. Gedaliah invited them to dinner. ² While they were eating, Ishmael and the ten men in league with him suddenly jumped up, pulled out their swords, and killed Gedaliah. ³ Then they went out and slaughtered all the Jewish officials and Babylonian soldiers who were in Mizpah with Gedaliah.

⁴ The next day, before the outside world knew what had happened, ⁵ eighty men approached Mizpah from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, to worship at the Temple of the Lord. They had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and cut themselves, and were bringing offerings and incense. ⁶ Ishmael went out from the city to meet them, crying as he went. When he faced them he said, “Oh, come and see what has happened to Gedaliah!”

⁷ Then, when they were all inside the city, Ishmael and his men killed all but ten of them and threw their bodies into a cistern. ⁸ The ten had talked Ishmael into letting them go by promising to bring him their treasures of wheat, barley, oil, and honey they had hidden away. ⁹ The cistern where Ishmael dumped the bodies of the men he murdered was the large one constructed by King Asa when he fortified Mizpah to protect himself against Baasha, king of Israel.^[a]

¹⁰ Ishmael made captives of the king’s daughters and of the people who had been left under Gedaliah’s care in Mizpah by Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard. Soon after, he took them with him when he headed toward the country of the Ammonites.

¹¹ But when Johanan (son of Kareah) and the rest of the guerrilla leaders heard what Ishmael had done, ¹² they took all their men and set out to stop him. They caught up with him at the pool near Gibeon. ^13-14 The people with Ishmael shouted for joy when they saw Johanan and his men and ran to meet them.

¹⁵ Meanwhile Ishmael escaped with eight of his men into the land of the Ammonites.

^16-17 Then Johanan and his men went to the village of Geruth Chimham, near Bethlehem, taking with them all those they had rescued—soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs, to prepare to leave for Egypt. ¹⁸ For they were afraid of what the Babylonians would do when the news reached them that Ishmael had killed Gedaliah the governor, for he had been chosen and appointed by the Babylonian emperor.

42 Then Johanan and the army captains and all the people, great and small, came to Jeremiah ² and said, “Please pray for us to the Lord your God, for as you know so well, we are only a tiny remnant of what we were before. ³ Beg the Lord your God to show us what to do and where to go.”

⁴ “All right,” Jeremiah replied. “I will ask him and I will tell you what he says. I will hide nothing from you.”

⁵ Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the curse of God be on us if we refuse to obey whatever he says we should do! ⁶ Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we send you with our plea. For if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us.”

⁷ Ten days later the Lord gave his reply to Jeremiah. ⁸ So he called for Johanan and the captains of his forces, and for all the people, great and small, ⁹ and said to them: “You sent me to the Lord, the God of Israel, with your request, and this is his reply:

¹⁰ “Stay here in this land. If you do, I will bless you, and no one will harm you. For I am sorry for all the punishment I have had to give to you. ¹¹ Don’t fear the king of Babylon anymore, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. ¹² And I will be merciful to you by making him kind so that he will not kill you or make slaves of you but will let you stay here in your land.

^13-14 “But if you refuse to obey the Lord and say, ‘We will not stay here,’—and insist on going to Egypt where you think you will be free from war and hunger and alarms, ¹⁵ then this is what the Lord replies, O remnant of Judah: The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: If you insist on going to Egypt, ¹⁶ the war and famine you fear will follow close behind you, and you will perish there. ¹⁷ That is the fate awaiting every one of you who insists on going to live in Egypt. Yes, you will die from sword, famine, and disease. None of you will escape from the evil I will bring upon you there.

¹⁸ “For the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Just as my anger and fury were poured out upon the people of Jerusalem, so it will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. You will be received with disgust and with hatred—you will be cursed and reviled. And you will never again see your own land. ¹⁹ For the Lord has said: O remnant of Judah, do not go to Egypt!”

Jeremiah concluded: “Never forget the warning I have given you today. ²⁰ If you go, it will be at the cost of your lives. For you were deceitful when you sent me to pray for you and said, ‘Just tell us what God says and we will do it!’ ²¹ And today I have told you exactly what he said, but you will not obey any more now than you did the other times. ²² Therefore know for a certainty that you will die by sword, famine, and disease in Egypt, where you insist on going.”

4 Although God’s promise still stands—his promise that all may enter his place of rest—we ought to tremble with fear because some of you may be on the verge of failing to get there after all. ² For this wonderful news—the message that God wants to save us—has been given to us just as it was to those who lived in the time of Moses. But it didn’t do them any good because they didn’t believe it. They didn’t mix it with faith. ³ For only we who believe God can enter into his place of rest. He has said, “I have sworn in my anger that those who don’t believe me will never get in,” even though he has been ready and waiting for them since the world began.

⁴ We know he is ready and waiting because it is written that God rested on the seventh day of creation, having finished all that he had planned to make.

⁵ Even so they didn’t get in, for God finally said, “They shall never enter my rest.” ⁶ Yet the promise remains and some get in—but not those who had the first chance, for they disobeyed God and failed to enter.

⁷ But he has set another time for coming in, and that time is now. He announced this through King David long years after man’s first failure to enter, saying in the words already quoted, “Today when you hear him calling, do not harden your hearts against him.”

⁸ This new place of rest he is talking about does not mean the land of Israel that Joshua led them into. If that were what God meant, he would not have spoken long afterwards about “today” being the time to get in. ⁹ So there is a full complete rest still waiting for the people of God. ¹⁰ Christ has already entered there. He is resting from his work, just as God did after the creation. ¹¹ Let us do our best to go into that place of rest, too, being careful not to disobey God as the children of Israel did, thus failing to get in.

¹² For whatever God says to us is full of living power: it is sharper than the sharpest dagger, cutting swift and deep into our innermost thoughts and desires with all their parts, exposing us for what we really are. ¹³ He knows about everyone, everywhere. Everything about us is bare and wide open to the all-seeing eyes of our living God; nothing can be hidden from him to whom we must explain all that we have done.

¹⁴ But Jesus the Son of God is our great High Priest who has gone to heaven itself to help us; therefore let us never stop trusting him. ¹⁵ This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses since he had the same temptations we do, though he never once gave way to them and sinned. ¹⁶ So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need.