Judah’s Sin and the Punishment

17 The sin of Judah is written down with pen of iron and with a sharp diamond. It is written on their hearts and on the horns of their altars. ² Even their children remember their altars and their wooden female goddesses of Asherah by green trees and on the high hills. ³ O My mountain in the country, I will give your money and all your riches to those who fight against you. I will give your high places as the price of your sin through all your land. ⁴ And you yourself will let your land go that I gave you. I will make you serve those who hate you in a land which you do not know. For you have made My an-ger start a fire which will burn forever.

⁵ The Lord says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, who trusts in the flesh for his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. ⁶ For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when good comes. He will live in dry wastes in the desert, in a land of salt where no other people live. ⁷ Good will come to the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord. ⁸ He will be like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the river. It will not be afraid when the heat comes but its leaves will be green. It will not be troubled in a dry year, or stop giving fruit.

⁹ “The heart is fooled more than anything else, and is very sinful. Who can know how bad it is? ¹⁰ I the Lord look into the heart, and test the mind. I give to each man what he should have because of his ways and because of the fruit that comes from his works. ¹¹ As a bird that sits on eggs which it has not laid, so is he who gets rich by doing wrong. When his life is half over, they will leave him, and in the end he will be a fool.”

¹² A beautiful throne on high from the beginning is our holy place. ¹³ O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who leave You will be put to shame. Those who turn away from You will be written in the earth, because they have left the Lord, the well of living water.

Jeremiah Prays for Help

¹⁴ Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed. Save me and I will be saved. For You are my praise. ¹⁵ They say to me, “Where is the Word of the Lord? Let it come now!” ¹⁶ But as for me, I have not run away from being a shepherd who follows You. And I have not been hoping for the day of trouble. You know what I said was spoken in front of You. ¹⁷ Do not make me afraid of You. You are my safe place in the day of trouble. ¹⁸ Let those who make it hard for me be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame. Let them be afraid, but do not let me be afraid. Bring on them a day of trouble, and destroy them with twice as much!

Keeping the Day of Rest Holy

¹⁹ The Lord said to me, “Go and stand in the people’s gate, through which the kings of Judah come in and go out, and also in all the gates of Jerusalem. ²⁰ And say to them, ‘Listen to the Word of the Lord, kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all people of Jerusalem who come in through these gates. ²¹ The Lord says, “Be careful for your lives. Do not carry any load on the Day of Rest or bring anything in through the gates of Jerusalem. ²² Do not bring a load out of your houses on the Day of Rest or do any work. But keep the Day of Rest holy, as I told your fathers before you. ²³ Yet they did not listen or hear, but made their necks hard and would not change their ways.

²⁴ “Listen to Me,” says the Lord, “and bring no load through the city gates on the Day of Rest. Keep the Day of Rest holy by doing no work on it. ²⁵ Then kings and their sons will come through the city gates who will sit on the throne of David. They will come in war-wagons and on horses, with the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. And people will live in this city forever. ²⁶ People will come in from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem. They will come from the land of Benjamin, from the valleys, from the hill country, and from the Negev. They will bring burnt gifts, animals to kill on the altar in worship, grain gifts, special perfume, and gifts of thanks to the house of the Lord. ²⁷ But if you do not listen to Me, to keep the Day of Rest holy by not carrying a load when coming through the gates of Jerusalem on the Day of Rest, then I will start a fire in its gates. And it will burn up the beautiful houses of the kings of Jerusalem and will not be stopped.”’”

The Pot-Maker and the Clay

18 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, ² “Go down to the pot-maker’s house, and there I will let you hear My words.” ³ So I went down to the pot-maker’s house, and saw him making one on the wheel. ⁴ But the pot he was making of clay did not come out like he wanted it. So the pot-maker used the clay to make another pot that pleased him.

⁵ Then the Word of the Lord came to me saying, ⁶ “O people of Israel, can I not do with you as this potmaker has done?” says the Lord. “Like the clay in the pot-maker’s hand, so are you in My hand, O people of Israel. ⁷ If at any time I speak about a nation, to pull up, and to break down and to destroy, ⁸ and if that nation I spoke against turns from its sin, then I will change My mind about the trouble I planned to bring upon it. ⁹ If at another time I speak about a nation, that I will build and plant it, ¹⁰ and if it does what is sinful in My eyes by not obeying My voice, then I will change My mind about the good I had promised to bring to it. ¹¹ So now speak to the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. Tell them, ‘The Lord says, “See, I am making trouble for you and making a plan against you. So each of you turn from your sinful way. Change your ways and your works.”’ ¹² But they will say, ‘There is no hope! For we are going to follow our own plans. Each of us will act in the strong-will of his sinful heart.’

The People Turn from the Lord

¹³ “So the Lord says, ‘Ask now among the nations: Who has heard such things? Pure Israel has done a very sinful thing. ¹⁴ Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave its rocky mountains? Does the cold flowing water of other lands ever dry up? ¹⁵ But My people have forgotten Me. They burn special perfume to false gods of no worth. They have fallen in their ways, from the old paths, and have gone on side roads, not on the straight road. ¹⁶ They make their land a waste, a thing that is spoken against forever. Everyone who passes by it will be surprised and shake his head. ¹⁷ I will send them out everywhere like an east wind in front of those who hate them. I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their trouble.’”

Plans to Kill Jeremiah

¹⁸ They said, “Come and let us make plans against Jeremiah. For the Law is not going to be lost to the religious leader, or wise words to the wise man, or the Word of God to the man of God! Come and let us hurt him with our tongue, and let us not listen to any of his words.”

¹⁹ Think of me, O Lord, and listen to what those who hate me are saying! ²⁰ Should bad be given in return for good? Yet they have dug a deep hole for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn Your anger away from them. ²¹ So give their children over to hunger. Give them up to the power of the sword. Let their wives lose their children and husbands. Let their men be put to death. And let their young men be killed by the sword in battle. ²² May a cry be heard from their houses when You bring an army upon them by surprise. For they have dug a deep hole to take me, and have hidden traps for my feet. ²³ Yet You, O Lord, know all their plans to kill me. Do not forgive their wrong-doing or cover their sin from Your eyes. Let them be taken down before You. Punish them in the time of Your anger.

The Broken Jar

19 The Lord says, “Go and buy a pot-maker’s clay jar, and take some of the leaders of the people and some of the older religious leaders. ² Then go out to the valley of BenHinnom, by the Potsherd Gate, and there say the words that I will tell you. ³ Say, ‘Hear the Word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. The Lord of All, the God of Israel, says, “See, I am about to bring much trouble to this place. The ears of everyone that hears of it will hurt. ⁴ The people have left Me and have made this a strange place. They have burned special perfume in it to other gods that they and their fathers and the kings of Judah had never known. They have filled this place with the blood of those who were not guilty. ⁵ They have built the high places of the false god Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt gifts to Baal. This is a thing which I never told them to do or spoke of. It did not even come to My mind. ⁶ So see, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of BenHinnom. Instead it will be called the Valley of Killing. ⁷ I will make the plans of Judah and Jerusalem come to nothing in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword in front of those who hate them and by the hand of those who want to kill them. And I will feed their dead bodies to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth. ⁸ I will make this city a waste place, and people will make sounds of hate. Everyone who passes by it will be surprised and make strange noises because of all its troubles. ⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And they will eat each other’s flesh when the armies shut them in, and when those who want to kill them bring much trouble to them.”’

¹⁰ “Then you are to break the jar in front of the men who go with you. ¹¹ And say to them, ‘The Lord of All says, “In this way I will break these people and this city, even as one breaks a pot-maker’s jar, which cannot be put back together. Men will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no place left to bury. ¹² This is what I will do to this place and its people,” says the Lord. “I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³ The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be made unclean like Topheth. This will be because of all the houses on whose roofs they burned special perfume to all the false gods of the heavens and poured out drink gifts to other gods.”’”

¹⁴ Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to tell what would happen. And he stood in the open space of the Lord’s house and said to all the people, ¹⁵ “The Lord of All, the God of Israel, says, ‘See, I am about to bring to this city and to all its towns all the trouble that I have spoken about, because they have made their necks hard and would not listen to My Words.’”

Jeremiah and the Religious Leader Pashhur

20 Now Pashhur the religious leader, the son of Immer, was the head leader in the house of the Lord. When he heard Jeremiah saying these things, ² Pashhur had Jeremiah the man of God beaten. Then he put him in chains at the upper Benjamin Gate by the house of the Lord. ³ On the next day, when Pashhur set Jeremiah free from the chains, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call you Pashhur, but Fear Everywhere. ⁴ For the Lord says, ‘See, I am going to make you a fear to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of those who hate them while you look on. I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon. And he will carry them away in chains to Babylon and will kill them with the sword. ⁵ I will give over all the riches of this city, all that its people have worked for, and all its things of much worth. Even all the riches of the kings of Judah I will give to those who hate them. They will take their things, and take hold of them, and carry them to Babylon. ⁶ And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will be taken away in chains. You will go to Babylon, and there you will die, and there you will be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have told lies.’”

Jeremiah’s Complaint to the Lord

⁷ O Lord, You have lied to me and I was fooled. You are stronger than I, and have had power over me. I have been laughed at all day. Everyone makes fun of me. ⁸ For whenever I speak, I cry out. I tell of fighters and destroyers. For the Word of the Lord has become a shame and a cause of laughing at me all day long. ⁹ But if I say, “I will not remember Him or speak any more in His name,” then in my heart it is like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am tired of holding it in, and I cannot do that. ¹⁰ For I have heard many speaking in secret, saying, “Fear and trouble is on every side! Speak against him! Yes, let us speak against him!” All my trusted friends, watching for my fall, say, “It may be that he will be fooled. Then we can get power over him and punish him.” ¹¹ But the Lord is with me like a powerful one who causes fear. So those who make it hard for me will fall and not have power over me. They will be put to much shame, because their plans have not gone well. Their shame will last forever and will not be forgotten. ¹² O Lord of All, You test those who are right and good. You see the mind and the heart. Let me see You punish them, for I have given my cause to You. ¹³ Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord! For He has taken the soul of the one in need from the hand of the sinful.

¹⁴ Cursed is the day when I was born! Let the day not be honored when my mother gave birth to me! ¹⁵ Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, “A baby boy has been born to you!” and made him very happy. ¹⁶ Let that man be like the cities which the Lord destroyed without pity. Let him hear a cry in the morning and a call of danger at noon. ¹⁷ For he did not kill me before I was born, so that my mother’s body would have been my grave. ¹⁸ Why was I ever born to see trouble and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?