Slaves of Nebuchadnezzar

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

Jeremiah, make a wooden yoke^[b] with leather straps, and place it on your neck. ³ Then send a message^[c] 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 (B) and I have chosen my servant King Nebuchadnezzar^[d] 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^[e] 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 ^(A) Later that same year, in the fifth month of the fourth year that Zedekiah^[a] was king,^[b] 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^[c] that Nebuchadnezzar^[d] 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^[e] 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.^[f]

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.