Jeremiah 25-28

Contemporary English Version

Seventy Years of Exile

25 ^1-2 (A) In the fourth year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah,^[a] which was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar^[b] was king of Babylonia, the Lord told me to speak to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. So I told them:

³ For 23 years now, ever since the thirteenth year that Josiah^[c] was king, I have been telling you what the Lord has told me. But you have not listened.

⁴ The Lord has sent prophets to you time after time, but you refused to listen. ⁵ They told you that the Lord had said:

Change your ways! If you stop doing evil, I will let you stay forever in this land that I gave your ancestors. ⁶ I don't want to harm you. So don't make me angry by worshiping idols and other gods.

⁷ But you refused to listen to my prophets. So I, the Lord, say that you have made me angry by worshiping idols, and you are the ones who were hurt by what you did. ⁸ You refused to listen to me, ⁹ and now I will let you be attacked by nations from the north, and especially by my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. You and other nearby nations will be destroyed and left in ruins forever. Everyone who sees what has happened will be shocked, but they will still make fun of you. ^10 (B) I will put an end to your parties and wedding celebrations; no one will grind grain or be here to light the lamps at night. ^11 (C) This country will be as empty as a desert, because I will make all of you the slaves of the king of Babylonia for 70 years.

¹² When that time is up, I will punish the king of Babylonia and his people for everything they have done wrong, and I will turn that country into a wasteland forever. ¹³ My servant Jeremiah has told you what I said I will do to Babylonia and to the other nations, and he wrote it all down in this book. I will do everything I threatened. ¹⁴ I will pay back the Babylonians for every wrong they have done. Great kings from many other nations will conquer the Babylonians and force them to be slaves.

The Cup Full of God's Anger

¹⁵ The Lord God of Israel showed me a vision in which he said, “Jeremiah, here is a cup filled with the wine of my anger. Take it and make every nation drink some. ¹⁶ They will vomit and act crazy, because of the war this cup of anger will bring to them.”

¹⁷ I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and I went to the kings of the nations and made each of them drink some. ¹⁸ I started with Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, and the king and his officials were removed from power in disgrace. Everyone still makes insulting jokes about them and uses their names as curse words. ¹⁹ The second place I went was Egypt, where everyone had to drink from the cup, including the king and his officials, the other government workers, the rest of the Egyptians, ²⁰ and all the foreigners who lived in the country.

Next I went to the king of Uz, and then to the four kings of Philistia, who ruled from Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what was left of Ashdod.^{[d] 21} Then I went to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, ²² and to the kings of Tyre, Sidon, and their colonies across the sea. ^23-24 After this, I went to the kings of Dedan, Tema, Buz, the tribes of the Arabian Desert,^{[e] 25} Zimri, Elam, Media, ²⁶ and the countries in the north, both near and far.

I went to all the countries on earth, one after another, and finally to Babylonia.^[f]

²⁷ The Lord had said to tell each king, “The Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, commands you to drink from this cup that is full of the wine of his anger. It will make you so drunk that you will vomit. And when the Lord sends war against the nations, you will be completely defeated.”

²⁸ The Lord told me that if any of them refused to drink from the cup, I must tell them that he had said, “I, the Lord All-Powerful, command you to drink. ²⁹ Starting with my own city of Jerusalem, everyone on earth will suffer from war. So there is no way I will let you escape unharmed.”

³⁰ The Lord told me to say:

Disaster Is Coming

³² The Lord All-Powerful says:

³³ When it strikes, I will kill so many people that their bodies will cover the ground like manure. No one will be left to bury them or to mourn.

The Leaders of Judah Will Be Punished

Jeremiah's Message in the Temple

(Jeremiah 7.1-15)

26 ^(D) Soon after Jehoiakim^[i] became king of Judah, the Lord said:

² Jeremiah, I have a message for everyone who comes from the towns of Judah to worship in my temple. Go to the temple courtyard and speak every word that I tell you. ³ Maybe the people will listen this time. And if they stop doing wrong, I will change my mind and not punish them for their sins. ⁴ Tell them that I have said:

You have refused to listen to me and to obey my laws and teachings. ⁵ Again and again I have sent my servants the prophets to preach to you, but you ignored them as well. Now I am warning you that if you don't start obeying me at once, ^6 (E) I will destroy this temple, just as I destroyed the town of Shiloh.^[j] Then everyone on earth will use the name “Jerusalem” as a curse word.

Jeremiah on Trial

⁷ The priests, the prophets, and everyone else in the temple heard what I said, ^8-9 and as soon as I finished, they all crowded around me and started shouting, “Why did you preach that the Lord will destroy this temple, just as he destroyed Shiloh? Why did you say that Jerusalem will be empty and lie in ruins? You ought to be put to death for saying such things in the Lord's name!” Then they had me arrested.

¹⁰ The royal officers heard what had happened, and they came from the palace to the new gate of the temple to be the judges at my trial.^{[k] 11} While they listened, the priests and the prophets said to the crowd, “All of you have heard Jeremiah prophesy that Jerusalem will be destroyed. He deserves the death penalty.”

^12-13 Then I told the judges and everyone else:

The Lord himself sent me to tell you about the terrible things he will do to you, to Jerusalem, and to the temple. But if you change your ways and start obeying the Lord, he will change his mind.

¹⁴ You must decide what to do with me. Just do whatever you think is right. ¹⁵ But if you put me to death, you and everyone else in Jerusalem will be guilty of murdering an innocent man, because everything I preached came from the Lord.

¹⁶ The judges and the other people told the priests and prophets, “Since Jeremiah only told us what the Lord our God had said, we don't think he deserves to die.”

¹⁷ Then some of the leaders from other towns stepped forward. They told the crowd that ^18 (F) years ago when Hezekiah^[l] was king of Judah, a prophet named Micah from the town of Moresheth had said:

¹⁹ Then the leaders continued:

No one put Micah to death for saying that. Instead, King Hezekiah prayed to the Lord with fear and trembling and asked him to have mercy. Then the Lord decided not to destroy Jerusalem, even though he had already said he would.

People of Judah, if Jeremiah is killed, we will bring a terrible disaster on ourselves.

^20-24 After these leaders finished speaking, an important man named Ahikam son of Shaphan spoke up for me as well. And so, I wasn't handed over to the crowd to be killed.

Uriah the Prophet

While Jehoiakim^[n] was still king of Judah, a man named Uriah son of Shemaiah left his hometown of Kiriath-Jearim and came to Jerusalem. Uriah was one of the Lord's prophets, and he was saying the same things about Judah and Jerusalem that I had been saying. And when Jehoiakim and his officials and military officers heard what Uriah said, they tried to arrest him, but he escaped to Egypt. So Jehoiakim sent Elnathan son of Achbor and some other men after Uriah, and they brought him back. Then Jehoiakim had Uriah killed and his body dumped in a common burial pit.

Slaves of Nebuchadnezzar

27 ^1-2 (G) Not long after Zedekiah became king of Judah,^[o] the Lord told me:

Jeremiah, make a wooden yoke^[p] with leather straps, and place it on your neck. ³ Then send a message^[q] to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. Some officials from these countries are in Jerusalem, meeting with Zedekiah. ⁴ So have them tell their kings that I have said:

I am the All-Powerful Lord God of Israel, ⁵ and with my power I created the earth, its people, and all animals. I decide who will rule the earth, ^6-7 (H) and I have chosen my servant King Nebuchadnezzar^[r] of Babylonia to rule all nations, including yours. I will even let him rule the wild animals. All nations will be slaves of Nebuchadnezzar, his son, and his grandson. Then many nations will join together, and their kings will make slaves of the Babylonians.

⁸ This yoke stands for the power of King Nebuchadnezzar, and I will destroy any nation that refuses to obey him. Nebuchadnezzar will attack, and many will die in battle or from hunger and disease. ⁹ You might have people in your kingdom who claim they can tell the future by magic or by talking with the dead or by dreams or messages from a god. But don't pay attention if any of them tell you not to obey Nebuchadnezzar. ¹⁰ If you listen to such lies, I will have you dragged far from your country and killed. ¹¹ But if you and your nation are willing to obey Nebuchadnezzar, I will let you stay in your country, and your people will continue to live and work on their farms.

¹² After I had spoken to the officials from the nearby kingdoms, I went to King Zedekiah and told him the same thing. Then I said:

Zedekiah, if you and the people of Judah want to stay alive, you must obey Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. ¹³ But if you refuse, then you and your people will die from war, hunger, and disease, just as the Lord has warned. ¹⁴ Your prophets have told you that you don't need to obey Nebuchadnezzar, but don't listen to their lies. ¹⁵ Those prophets claim to be speaking for the Lord, but he didn't send them. They are lying! If you do what they say, he will have both you and them dragged off to another country and killed. The Lord has spoken.

¹⁶ When I finished talking to the king, I told the priests and everyone else that the Lord had said:

Don't listen to the prophets when they say that very soon the Babylonians will return the things they took from my temple. Those prophets are lying! ¹⁷ If you choose to obey the king of Babylonia, you will live. But if you listen to those prophets, this whole city will be nothing but a pile of rubble.

¹⁸ If I really had spoken to those prophets, they would know what I am going to do. Then they would be begging me not to let everything else be taken from the temple and the king's palace and the rest of Jerusalem. ^19-21 After all, when Nebuchadnezzar took King Jehoiachin^[s] to Babylonia as a prisoner, he didn't take everything of value from Jerusalem. He left the bronze pillars, the huge bronze bowl called the Sea, and the movable bronze stands in the temple, and he left a lot of other valuable things in the palace and in the rest of Jerusalem.

But now I, the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, say that all these things ²² will be taken to Babylonia, where they will remain until I decide to bring them back to Jerusalem. I, the Lord, have spoken.

Jeremiah Accuses Hananiah of Being a False Prophet

28 ^(I) Later that same year, in the fifth month of the fourth year that Zedekiah^[t] was king,^[u] the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur from Gibeon came up to me in the temple. And while the priests and others in the temple were listening, ² he told me that the Lord had said:

I am the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, and I will smash the yoke^[v] that Nebuchadnezzar^[w] put on the necks of the nations to make them his slaves. ³ And within two years, I will bring back to Jerusalem everything that he took from my temple and carried off to Babylonia. ⁴ King Jehoiachin^[x] and the other people who were taken from Judah to Babylonia will be allowed to come back here as well. All this will happen because I will smash the power of the king of Babylonia!

⁵ The priests and the others were still standing there, so I said:

⁶ Hananiah, I hope the Lord will do exactly what you said. I hope he does bring back everything the Babylonians took from the temple, and that our people who were taken to Babylonia will be allowed to return home. ⁷ But let me remind you and everyone else ⁸ that long before we were born, prophets were saying powerful kingdoms would be struck by war, disaster, and disease. ⁹ Now you are saying we will have peace. We will just have to wait and see if that is really what the Lord has said.^[y]

¹⁰ Hananiah grabbed the wooden yoke from my neck and smashed it. ¹¹ Then he said, “The Lord says this is the way he will smash the power Nebuchadnezzar has over the nations, and it will happen in less than two years.”

I left the temple, ¹² and a little while later, the Lord told me ^13-14 to go back and say to Hananiah:

I am the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel. You smashed a wooden yoke, but I will replace it with one made of iron. I will put iron yokes on all the nations, and they will have to do what King Nebuchadnezzar commands. I will even let him rule the wild animals.

^15-16 Hananiah, I have never sent you to speak for me. And yet you have talked my people into believing your lies and rebelling against me. So now I will send you—I'll send you right off the face of the earth! You will die before this year is over.

¹⁷ Two months later, Hananiah died.