Old/New Testament

Chapter 43

¹ When Jeremiah had finished relating to the people all these words that the Lord, their God, had sent him to reveal to them, ² Azariah, the son of Hoshaiah, Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the rest of the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling blatant lies. The Lord, our God, did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt and settle there.’ ³ Rather it is Baruch, the son of Neriah, who continues to incite you against us and keeps urging you to hand us over to the Chaldeans so that they can put us to death or deport us into exile in Babylon.”

⁴ Therefore, Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the military leaders and all the people refused to obey the Lord’s command to remain in the land of Judah. ⁵ Instead Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the military leaders led away the entire remnant of Judah who had been scattered among all the nations and who then had returned to settle in the land of Judah: ⁶ men, women, and children, the daughters of the king, and everyone whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, had entrusted to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, including the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch, the son of Neriah. ⁷ In disobedience to the Lord’s command, they traveled to the land of Egypt and arrived at Tahpanhes.

Invasion of Egypt. ⁸ Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah at Tahpanhes. ⁹ “Take some large stones and bury them in the cement in the terrace at the entrance to Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes, while the men of Judah can see you. ¹⁰ Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I intend to send for my servant Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and he will set his throne upon these stones that I have buried, and he will spread his canopy over them. ¹¹ He will come and ravage the land of Egypt:

¹² “ ‘He will set fire to the temple of the gods of Egypt, burning their gods and carrying them off. He will scour the land of Egypt as a shepherd scrubs off the vermin from his cloak, and he will depart from there safely. ¹³ He will smash the obelisks of the temple of the sun in the land of Egypt, and he will destroy the temples of the Egyptian gods with fire.’ ”

Chapter 44

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah for all the Judeans who were living in the land of Egypt, at Migdol, at Tahpanhes, at Memphis, and in the district of Pathros. ² Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You have seen the immense disaster that I have inflicted on Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. Today they lie in ruins and are left uninhabited. ³ This was the result of all the wicked deeds your ancestors committed that provoked me to anger, as they went forth to serve other gods and offer sacrifices to them whom neither they, nor you, nor your ancestors ever had known before.

⁴ Even though I continued to send to them all my servants the prophets with this plea, “Do not do this abominable thing that I hate,” ⁵ they would not listen or pay any heed to my warning to refrain from their wicked deeds and cease to offer sacrifices to other gods. ⁶ Therefore, my fury and my wrath poured forth, burning to ashes the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem and reducing them to the desolate wasteland they are today.

⁷ And now this is what the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, has to say: Why are you inflicting such a total disaster upon yourselves? Why are you uprooting men and women, children and babies, from Judah, thus leaving yourselves without a remnant? ⁸ Will you continue to provoke me to anger by the works of your hands as you make sacrifices to strange gods in Egypt where you have come to settle, cutting yourselves off and becoming an object of cursing and ridicule among all the nations of the earth?

⁹ Have you forgotten the wicked crimes committed by your ancestors and by the kings of Judah and their wives, and also your own crimes and those of your wives, all of them committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰ To this very day they have shown no remorse or fear, nor have they observed my law and my statutes which I prescribed for you and for your ancestors.

¹¹ Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am determined to inflict disaster upon you and to destroy Judah completely. ¹² I will take the remnant of Judah who were determined to come to the land of Egypt and settle there, and in Egypt, they will all perish. They will fall by the sword and by famine. From the least to the greatest they will die by the sword and by famine, and they will become an object of execration and horror, a curse and a reproach.

¹³ I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt as I punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence. ¹⁴ None of the remnant of Judah who have come to settle in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah, even though they may long to return and live there. None will be allowed to return, except for a few refugees.

¹⁵ Then all the men who were aware that their wives had been burning incense to other gods, and all the women who were standing there in a great assemblage, and all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt replied to Jeremiah, ¹⁶ “We have no intention of giving credence to the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord. ¹⁷ Rather, we will continue to do everything we have vowed to do. We will make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. In those days we used to have an abundance of food; we prospered and endured no misfortune. ¹⁸ But from the time we ceased to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her, we have been in great need, and we have perished by the sword and by famine.”

¹⁹ The women added, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out libations to her, do you think that our husbands were not aware that we made cakes depicting her image and that we poured out libations to her?”^[a]

²⁰ Then to all the people, both men and women, who had given him this answer, Jeremiah said, ²¹ “In regard to the incense offerings that you and your ancestors, your kings and your officials, and the people of the land burned in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, the Lord certainly remembered them and kept them in mind. ²² When the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and your loathsome practices, your land became a desolate waste, an accursed object of horror without inhabitants, as it is to this day. ²³ The disaster you are now enduring has befallen you because you burned incense and sinned against the Lord, refusing to obey the voice of the Lord and failing to live in accordance with his law, his statutes, and his decrees.”

²⁴ Jeremiah then said further to all the people, and in particular to all the women, “Listen to the word of the Lord, all you Judeans in the land of Egypt. ²⁵ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You and your wives have accomplished with your hands what you promised with your mouths when you said, ‘We are determined to fulfill the vows we have made to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her.’ Very well, keep your vows and do what you promised.

²⁶ “However, listen attentively to the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. I swear by my great name, says the Lord, that my name will never issue forth from the lips of any of the people of Judah throughout the land of Egypt. No one of them will ever say, ‘As the Lord God lives.’

²⁷ “I intend to watch over them to ensure their harm rather than their well-being. All the people of Judah who have settled in the land of Egypt will perish either by the sword or by famine, until not a single one remains. ²⁸ Those who escape the sword and return from the land of Egypt to Judah will be few in number. Then the entire remnant of Judah who were determined to settle in Egypt will come to the realization that it has been my word that prevailed, and not theirs.

^29 [b]“This is the sign from me to you that I will punish you in this place, says the Lord, in order that you may realize that my promise to you will be carried out. ³⁰ Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will hand over Pharaoh Hophra, the king of Egypt, to his enemies, to those who seek his life, just as I handed over Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to his enemy who sought his life, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.”

Chapter 45^[c]

Encouraging Message to Baruch. ¹ This is the message that the prophet Jeremiah addressed to Baruch, the son of Neriah, when Baruch inscribed these words on a scroll at Jeremiah’s dictation in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah:

² Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, Baruch: ³ You said, “Woe is me, for the Lord has added further grief to my pain. I am exhausted from groaning, and I can find no respite.”

⁴ Say this to him, “Thus says the Lord: I intend to tear down what I have built, and to uproot what I have planted throughout the entire land. ⁵ Should you therefore seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them, for I intend to inflict evil upon all mankind, says the Lord. However, I will allow you to escape with your life wherever you may go.”

Chapter 5

¹ Every high priest is taken from among men to represent them in their dealings with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.^{[a] 2} He is able to deal patiently with those who are ignorant and misguided, since he himself is subject to weakness. ³ And as a result of this, he must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. ⁴ Moreover, one does not assume this position of honor on his own initiative, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

⁵ Even Christ did not confer upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. Rather, he was appointed by the one who said to him:

⁶ And he says in another place:

⁷ During the course of his earthly life, Jesus offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who had the power to save him from death, and he was heard because of his godly fear. ⁸ Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through his sufferings, ⁹ and when he had been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, ¹⁰ and he was designated a high priest by God according to the order of Melchizedek.

Christ, the One True Priest^[b]

You need milk, not solid food. ¹³ Anyone who lives on milk is still an infant and is ignorant of the word of righteousness. ¹⁴ But solid food is for adults whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil.