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God Rejects King Zedekiah’s Request

21 This is the message that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. This was when King Zedekiah of Judah sent Pashhur[a] son of Malkijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah. They brought a message for Jeremiah. They said to Jeremiah, “Pray to the Lord for us. Ask him what will happen. We want to know, because King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is attacking us. Maybe the Lord will do great things for us, as he did in the past. Maybe he will make Nebuchadnezzar stop attacking us and leave.”

Then Jeremiah answered Pashhur and Zephaniah. He said, “Tell King Zedekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: You have weapons of war in your hands that you are using to defend yourselves from the Babylonians and their king. But I will make those weapons worthless.

“‘The army from Babylon is outside the wall all around the city. Soon I will bring that army into Jerusalem. I myself will fight against you people of Judah. I will fight against you with my own powerful hand. I am very angry with you, so I will fight against you with my own powerful arm. I will fight very hard against you and show how angry I am. I will kill everything living in Jerusalem, both people and animals. They will die from a terrible disease that will spread all through the city. After that happens,’” says the Lord, “‘I will give King Zedekiah of Judah and all his officials to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And I will give to Nebuchadnezzar the people who remain alive in Jerusalem—those who did not die from the terrible disease and the people who did not die in war or from hunger. I will give them all to King Nebuchadnezzar. The people of Judah will be captured by their enemies who want to kill them. Nebuchadnezzar’s army will use their swords to kill the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar will not show any mercy. He will not feel sorry for them.’

“Also tell the people of Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Understand that I will let you choose to live or die. Anyone who stays in Jerusalem will die in war or from hunger or disease. But anyone who goes out of Jerusalem and surrenders to the Babylonians attacking you will live. Only those who leave the city will win anything in this war—their lives! 10 I have decided to make trouble for the city of Jerusalem. I will not help this city! I will give it to the king of Babylon, who will burn it with fire.’” This message is from the Lord.

11 “Say this to Judah’s royal family: ‘Listen to the message from the Lord. 12 Family of David, this is what the Lord says:

“‘You must judge people fairly every day.
    Protect the victims from the criminals.
If you don’t do that, I will become very angry.
    My anger will be like a fire that no one will be able to put out.
    This will happen because you have done evil things.’

13 “Jerusalem, I am against you.
    You sit on top of the mountain.
    You sit like a queen over this valley.
You people of Jerusalem say,
    ‘No one can attack us.
    No one can come into our strong city.’”
This message is from the Lord.

14 “You will get the punishment you deserve.
    I will start a fire in your forests
    that will completely burn everything around you.”
This message is from the Lord.

Judgment Against Evil Kings

22 The Lord said, “Jeremiah, go down to the king’s palace. Go to the king of Judah and tell this message there: ‘Listen to this message from the Lord, King of Judah. You rule from David’s throne, so listen. King, you and your officials must listen well. All of your people who come through the gates of Jerusalem must listen to the message from the Lord. This is what the Lord says: Do what is right and fair. Protect those who have been robbed from the ones who robbed them. Don’t hurt or do anything wrong to orphans or widows. Don’t kill innocent people. If you obey these commands, kings who sit on David’s throne will continue to come through the gates into the city of Jerusalem. They will come through the gates with their officials. The kings, their officials, and their people will come riding in chariots and on horses. But I, the Lord, tell you that if you don’t obey these commands, then I promise with an oath in my own name that this king’s palace will be destroyed—it will become a pile of rocks.’”

This is what the Lord says about the palace where the king of Judah lives:

“The palace is tall like the forests of Gilead,
    like the mountains of Lebanon.
But I will make it like a desert,
    as empty as a city where no one lives.
I will send men to destroy the palace,
    each armed with weapons.
They will cut up your strong, beautiful cedar beams
    and throw them into the fire.

“People from many nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, ‘Why has the Lord done such a terrible thing to Jerusalem? Jerusalem was such a great city.’ This will be the answer to that question: ‘God destroyed Jerusalem because the people of Judah stopped following the agreement of the Lord their God. They worshiped and served other gods.’”

Judgment Against King Jehoahaz

10 Don’t cry for the king who has died.[b]
    Don’t cry for him.
But cry very hard for the king
    who must leave this place.[c]
Cry for him because he will never return
    or see his homeland again.

11 This is what the Lord says about Jehoahaz[d] son of Josiah, who became king of Judah after his father Josiah died: “Jehoahaz has gone away from Jerusalem. He will never return. 12 Jehoahaz will die in the place where the Egyptians have taken him, and he will not see this land again.”

Judgment Against King Jehoiakim

13 “It will be very bad for King Jehoiakim.
    He is doing wrong so that he can build his palace.
He is cheating people so that he can build rooms upstairs.
    He is not paying his own people.
    He is making them work for nothing.

14 “Jehoiakim says,
    ‘I will build myself a great palace, with huge rooms upstairs.’
So he built it with large windows.
    He used cedar wood for paneling, and he painted it red.

15 “Jehoiakim, having a lot of cedar in your house
    does not make you a great king.
Your father Josiah was satisfied to have food and drink.
    He did what was right and fair,
    so everything went well for him.
16 Josiah helped poor and needy people,
    so everything went well for him.
Jehoiakim, what does it mean “to know God”?
    It means living right and being fair.
That is what it means to know me.
    This message is from the Lord.

17 “Jehoiakim, your eyes look only for what benefits yourself.
    You are always thinking about getting more for yourself.
You are willing to kill innocent people.
    You are willing to steal things from other people.”

18 So this is what the Lord says to King Jehoiakim son of Josiah:
“The people of Judah will not cry for Jehoiakim.
    They will not say to each other, ‘Brother, I am so sad!
    Sister, I am so sad!’
They will not cry for Jehoiakim.
    They will not say about him, ‘Master, I am so sad!
    King, I am so sad!’
19 The people of Jerusalem will bury Jehoiakim like a donkey.
    They will drag his body away and throw it outside the gates of Jerusalem.

20 “Judah, go up to the mountains of Lebanon and cry out.
    Let your voice be heard in the mountains of Bashan.
Cry out in the mountains of Abarim,
    because all your ‘lovers’ will be destroyed.

21 “Judah, you felt safe, but I warned you.
    I warned you, but you refused to listen.
You have lived like this from the time you were young.
    And from the time you were young,
    you have not obeyed me, Judah.
22 Judah, the punishment I give will come like a storm,
    and it will blow all your shepherds away.
You thought some of the other nations would help you.
    But these nations will also be defeated.
Then you will really be disappointed.
    You will be ashamed of all the evil things you did.

23 “King, you seem so safe in your palace of cedar.
    It’s as if you live in Lebanon![e]
But when your punishment comes, you will groan.
    You will be in pain like a woman giving birth!”

Judgment Against King Jehoiachin

24 “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “I will do this to you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah: Even if you were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. 25 Jehoiachin, I will give you to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonians. Those are the people you are afraid of. They want to kill you. 26 I will throw you and your mother into another country where neither of you was born. You and your mother will die in that country. 27 Jehoiachin, you will want to come back to your land, but you will never be allowed to come back.”

28 Jehoiachin is like a broken pot that someone threw away.
    He is like a pot that no one wants.
Why will Jehoiachin and his children be thrown out
    and sent away into a foreign land?
29 Land, land, land of Judah!
    Listen to this message from the Lord!
30 The Lord says, “Write this down about Jehoiachin:
    ‘He does not have children anymore!
Jehoiachin will not be successful
    because none of his children will sit on the throne of David.
    None of his children will rule in Judah.’”

23 “It will be very bad for the shepherds of the people of Judah. They are destroying the sheep. They are making the sheep run from my pasture in all directions.” This message is from the Lord.

They are responsible for my people. And this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to them: “You shepherds have made my sheep run away in all directions. You have forced them to go away, and you have not taken care of them. But I will take care of you—I will punish you for the evil things you did.” This message is from the Lord: “I sent my sheep to other countries. But I will gather together my sheep that are left, and I will bring them back to their pasture. When my sheep are back in their pasture, they will have many children and grow in number. I will place new shepherds over my sheep. They will take care of my sheep, and my sheep will never again feel afraid. None of my sheep will be lost.” This message is from the Lord.

The Good “Branch”

This message is from the Lord:
“The time is coming,
    when I will raise up a good ‘branch’ from David’s family.
He will be a king who will rule in a wise way.
    He will do what is fair and right in the land.
When he rules, Judah will be saved,
    and Israel will live in safety.
This will be his name:
    The Lord Makes Things Right for Us.[f]

“So the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when people will not make a promise by saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the one who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt ….’ But people will say something new: ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the one who brought the Israelites out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had sent them ….’ Then the people of Israel will live in their own land.”

Judgments Against False Prophets

A message to the prophets:
I am very sad—my heart is broken.
    All my bones are shaking.
Because of the Lord and his holy words,
    I am like a man who is drunk.
10 The land of Judah is full of people who commit adultery.
    They are unfaithful in many ways.
So God cursed the land,
    and it became very dry.
The plants are dried and dying in the pastures.
    The fields have become like the desert.
The prophets are evil.
    They use their influence and power in the wrong way.
11 This message is from the Lord:
“The prophets and even the priests are evil.
    I have seen them doing evil things in my own Temple.
12 I will stop giving my messages to them.
    They will walk in darkness.
The road will be slippery for those prophets and priests,
    and they will fall in that darkness.
I will bring disaster on them;
    I will punish them.”
This message is from the Lord.

13 “I saw the prophets of Samaria doing wrong things.
    I saw them prophesy in the name of the false god Baal.
    They led the people of Israel away from me.
14 I have even seen the prophets of Jerusalem doing sinful things.
    They are committing adultery and living a life of lies.
They support their fellow prophets
    and never stop doing evil.
They have become like Sodom;
    they are all like Gomorrah.”

15 So this is what the Lord All-Powerful says about those Jerusalem prophets:
“I will make them suffer.
    Their food will be bitter, their water like poison.
I will punish them because they started a spiritual sickness
    that spread through the whole country.”

16 This is what the Lord All-Powerful says:
“Don’t pay attention to what those prophets are saying to you.
    They are trying to fool you.
They talk about visions,
    but they did not get their visions from me.
    Their visions come from their own minds.
17 Some of the people hate the real messages from the Lord,
    so the prophets give them a different message.
    They say, ‘You will have peace.’
Some of the people are very stubborn.
    They do only what they want to do.
So the prophets say,
    ‘Nothing bad will happen to you!’
18 But none of these prophets has stood in the heavenly council.[g]
    None of them has seen or heard the message from the Lord.
    None of them has paid close attention to his message.
19 Now the punishment from the Lord will come like a storm.
    His anger will be like a tornado.
    It will come crashing down on the heads of those wicked people.
20 The Lord’s anger will not stop
    until he finishes what he plans to do.
When that day is over,
    you will understand this clearly.
21 I did not send those prophets,
    but they ran to tell their messages.
I did not speak to them,
    but they spoke in my name.
22 If they had stood in my heavenly council,
    then they would have told my messages to the people of Judah.
They would have stopped the people from doing bad things.
    They would have stopped them from doing evil.”

23 This message is from the Lord.
“I am God, and I am always near.
    I am not far away.
24 Someone might try to hide from me in some hiding place.
    But it is easy for me to see that person, says the Lord,
    because I am everywhere in heaven and earth.”

This message is from the Lord: 25 “There are prophets who tell lies in my name. They say, ‘I have had a dream! I have had a dream!’ I heard them say those things. 26 How long will this continue? They think up lies and then they teach them to the people. 27 They are trying to make the people of Judah forget my name by telling each other these false dreams. They are trying to make my people forget me, just as their ancestors forgot me and worshiped the false god Baal. 28 Straw is not the same as wheat! In the same way, the dreams of those prophets are not messages from me. If people want to tell about their dreams, let them. But those who hear my message must speak it truthfully.” This is what the Lord says. 29 Yes, the Lord says, “You must treat my message carefully, like a fire or like a hammer that can smash a rock.”

30 This message is from the Lord: “So I am against the false prophets. They keep stealing my words from each other.” 31 Yes, the Lord says, “I am against the false prophets. They use their own words and pretend that it is a message from me. 32 I am against the false prophets who tell false dreams.” This message is from the Lord. “They mislead my people with their lies and false teachings. I did not send them to teach the people. I never commanded them to do anything for me. They cannot help the people of Judah at all.” This message is from the Lord.

The Sad Message From the Lord

33 “The people of Judah, or a prophet, or a priest may ask you, ‘Jeremiah, what is the announcement of the Lord?’ You will answer them and say, ‘You are a heavy load[h], and I will throw down this heavy load.’ This message is from the Lord.

34 “A prophet, or a priest, or maybe one of the people might say, ‘This is an announcement from the Lord ….’ Because of that lie, I will punish that person and their whole family. 35 This is what you will say to one another: ‘What did the Lord answer?’ or ‘What did the Lord say?’ 36 But you will never again use the expression, ‘The announcement of the Lord.’ That is because his message should not be a heavy load for anyone. But you changed the words of our God. He is the living God, the Lord All-Powerful!

37 “If you want to learn about God’s message, ask a prophet, ‘What answer did the Lord give you?’ or ‘What did the Lord say?’ 38 But don’t say, ‘What was the announcement from the Lord?’ If you use these words, the Lord will say this to you: ‘You should not have called my message an “announcement from the Lord.” I told you not to use those words. 39 But you called my message a heavy load, so I will pick you up like a heavy load and throw you away from me. I gave the city of Jerusalem to your ancestors. But I will throw you and that city away from me, 40 and I will make you a disgrace forever. You will never forget your shame.’”

The Good Figs and the Bad Figs

24 The Lord showed me these things: I saw two baskets of figs arranged in front of the Temple of the Lord. (I saw this vision after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took Jehoiachin[i] as a prisoner. Jehoiachin, the son of King Jehoiakim, and all his important officials were taken away from Jerusalem. They were taken to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also took away all the carpenters and metalworkers of Judah.) One basket had very good figs in it, the kind that ripen early in the season. But the other basket had rotten figs. They were too rotten to eat.

The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I answered, “I see figs. The good figs are very good, and the rotten figs are very rotten. They are too rotten to eat.”

Then the message from the Lord came to me. The Lord, the God of Israel, said, “The people of Judah were taken from their country. Their enemy brought them to Babylon. Those people will be like these good figs. I will be kind to them. I will protect them. I will bring them back to the land of Judah. I will not tear them down—I will build them up. I will not pull them up—I will plant them so that they can grow. I will make them want to know me. They will know that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will do this because the prisoners in Babylon will turn to me with their whole hearts.”

But the Lord also says, “I will treat King Zedekiah of Judah like those figs that are too rotten to eat. Zedekiah, his high officials, all those who are left in Jerusalem, and those people of Judah who are living in Egypt will be like those rotten figs. I will punish them. Their punishment will shock all the people on earth. People will make fun of those people from Judah. People will tell jokes about them and curse them in all the places where I scatter them. 10 I will bring war, famine, and disease against them. I will attack them until they have all been killed. Then they will no longer be on the land that I gave to them and to their ancestors.”

Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 21:1 Pashhur This is not the same Pashhur as the man in Jer. 20:1.
  2. Jeremiah 22:10 the king who has died That is, King Josiah who was killed in battle against the Egyptians in 609 B.C.
  3. Jeremiah 22:10 the king … place This means Josiah’s son, Jehoahaz. He became king after Josiah died. He is also called Shallum. King Neco of Egypt defeated Josiah. And Neco took Jehoahaz off the throne of Judah and made him a prisoner in Egypt.
  4. Jeremiah 22:11 Jehoahaz The Hebrew text has “Shallum,” another name for Jehoahaz.
  5. Jeremiah 22:23 It’s as if … Lebanon The king’s palace in Jerusalem was built with wood from the mountains of Lebanon, which was famous for its cedar trees.
  6. Jeremiah 23:6 The Lord Makes Things Right for Us This is a wordplay. In Hebrew this is like the name Zedekiah, the king of Judah at the time this prophecy was probably given. But Jeremiah is talking about another king.
  7. Jeremiah 23:18 heavenly council The people in the Old Testament often talk about God as the leader of a council of heavenly beings (angels). Compare 1 Kings 22:19-23; Isa. 6:1-8 and Job 1 and 2.
  8. Jeremiah 23:33 heavy load This is a wordplay. The Hebrew word for “announcement” is like the word translated “heavy load.”
  9. Jeremiah 24:1 Jehoiachin The Hebrew text has “Jeconiah,” another name for King Jehoiachin, who was taken prisoner in the year 597 B.C.

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