Jeremiah 22 Cross References - WEB

¹ Yahweh said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word, there: ² ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne, you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. ³ Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴ For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, his servants, and his people. ⁵ But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says Yahweh, “that this house will become a desolation.”’” ⁶ For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited. ⁷ I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons, and they will cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. ⁸ “Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this great city?’ ⁹ Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God, worshiped other gods, and served them.’” ¹⁰ Don’t weep for the dead. Don’t bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he will return no more, and not see his native country. ¹¹ For Yahweh says touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went out of this place: “He won’t return there any more. ¹² But he will die in the place where they have led him captive. He will see this land no more.” ¹³ “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor’s service without wages, and doesn’t give him his hire; ¹⁴ who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,’ and cuts out windows for himself; with a cedar ceiling, and painted with red. ¹⁵ “Should you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn’t your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. ¹⁶ He judged the cause of the poor and needy; so it was well, then. Wasn’t this to know me?” says Yahweh. ¹⁷ But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.” ¹⁸ Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’ ¹⁹ He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” ²⁰ “Go up to Lebanon, and cry. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed. ²¹ I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice. ²² The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. ²³ Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail! ²⁴ “As I live,” says Yahweh, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, I would still pluck you from there. ²⁵ I would give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. ²⁶ I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die. ²⁷ But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.” ²⁸ Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know? ²⁹ O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word! ³⁰ Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne, and ruling in Judah.”

¹⁶ Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stay, and I will tell you what Yahweh said to me last night.” He said to him, “Say on.” ¹⁷ Samuel said, “Though you were little in your own sight, weren’t you made the head of the tribes of Israel? Yahweh anointed you king over Israel; ¹⁸ and Yahweh sent you on a journey, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ ¹⁹ Why then didn’t you obey Yahweh’s voice, but took the plunder, and did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight?” ²⁰ Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed Yahweh’s voice, and have gone the way which Yahweh sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. ²¹ But the people took of the plunder, sheep and cattle, the chief of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in Gilgal.” ²² Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying Yahweh’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected Yahweh’s word, he has also rejected you from being king.”

¹ Yahweh sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.

¹¹ When David rose up in the morning, Yahweh’s word came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, ¹² “Go and speak to David, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”

¹⁸ “Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who dwells in Samaria. Behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone down to take possession of it. ¹⁹ You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “Have you killed and also taken possession?”’ You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs will lick your blood, even yours.”’” ²⁰ Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do that which is evil in Yahweh’s sight.

² Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked, and love those who hate Yahweh? Because of this, wrath is on you from before Yahweh. ³ Nevertheless there are good things found in you, in that you have put away the Asheroth out of the land, and have set your heart to seek God.”

¹⁵ Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against Amaziah, and he sent to him a prophet, who said to him, “Why have you sought after the gods of the people, which have not delivered their own people out of your hand?” ¹⁶ As he talked with him, the king said to him, “Have we made you one of the king’s counselors? Stop! Why should you be struck down?” Then the prophet stopped, and said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this, and have not listened to my counsel.”

¹⁰ Yahweh spoke to Manasseh, and to his people; but they didn’t listen.

¹¹ “Concerning the house of the king of Judah, hear Yahweh’s word:

² “Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Yahweh says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon and he will burn it with fire.

¹ “Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.

¹³ but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”

¹⁸ For John said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”

¹⁹ but Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things which Herod had done, ²⁰ added this also to them all, that he shut up John in prison.

¹⁹ Micaiah said, “Therefore hear Yahweh’s word. I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the army of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.

¹⁰ Hear Yahweh’s word, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.

¹⁴ Therefore hear Yahweh’s word, you scoffers, that rule this people in Jerusalem:

² “Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.’”

¹⁸ Say to the king and to the queen mother, “Humble yourselves. Sit down, for your crowns have come down, even the crown of your glory.

²⁰ Tell them, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, you kings of Judah, all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates: ²¹ Yahweh says, “Be careful, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. ²² Don’t carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day. Don’t do any work, but make the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. ²³ But they didn’t listen. They didn’t turn their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive instruction. ²⁴ It will happen, if you diligently listen to me,” says Yahweh, “to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but to make the Sabbath day holy, to do no work therein; ²⁵ then there will enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on David’s throne, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city will remain forever. ²⁶ They will come from the cities of Judah, and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the lowland, from the hill country, and from the South, bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, meal offerings, and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving, to Yahweh’s house. ²⁷ But if you will not listen to me to make the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem. It will not be quenched.”’”

³ Say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.

⁴ For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, his servants, and his people.

²⁹ O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word! ³⁰ Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne, and ruling in Judah.”

¹⁶ Yahweh says concerning the king who sits on David’s throne, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your brothers who haven’t gone with you into captivity; ¹⁷ Yahweh of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad.

²⁰ Hear therefore Yahweh’s word, all you captives, whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

³⁰ Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He will have no one to sit on David’s throne. His dead body will be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.

⁷ “‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear Yahweh’s word:

¹⁶ Now therefore listen to Yahweh’s word: ‘You say, Don’t prophesy against Israel, and don’t preach against the house of Isaac.’

³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,

²² “You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child.

⁶ “You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. ⁷ “Keep far from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent and righteous; for I will not justify the wicked. ⁸ “You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous. ⁹ “You shall not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

¹⁵ “‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness.

¹⁸ He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing.

¹⁸ You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. ¹⁹ You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. ²⁰ You shall follow that which is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

¹⁰ This is so that innocent blood will not be shed in the middle of your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, leaving blood guilt on you. ¹¹ But if any man hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises up against him, strikes him mortally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities; ¹² then the elders of his city shall send and bring him there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. ¹³ Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the innocent blood from Israel that it may go well with you.

⁷ If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the children of Israel, and he deals with him as a slave, or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

¹ If there is a controversy between men, and they come to judgment and the judges judge them, then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.

¹⁹ ‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, fatherless, and widow.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

³ The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, ‘One who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God,

⁴ and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and Yahweh would not pardon.

⁹ You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

⁹ There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,

⁷ when I went out to the city gate, when I prepared my seat in the street. ⁸ The young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged rose up and stood. ⁹ The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. ¹⁰ The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. ¹¹ For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it commended me: ¹² Because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had no one to help him, ¹³ the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. ¹⁴ I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was as a robe and a diadem. ¹⁵ I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. ¹⁶ I was a father to the needy. I researched the cause of him whom I didn’t know. ¹⁷ I broke the jaws of the unrighteous and plucked the prey out of his teeth.

⁵ A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.

² He will judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. ³ The mountains shall bring prosperity to the people. The hills bring the fruit of righteousness. ⁴ He will judge the poor of the people. He will save the children of the needy, and will break the oppressor in pieces.

⁶ They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless.

²¹ They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

¹⁷ arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁰ Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless,

¹⁵ When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. ¹⁶ Wash yourselves. Make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. ¹⁷ Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.” ¹⁸ “Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. ¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land; ²⁰ but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”

²³ Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

²⁸ They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

⁵ For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; ⁶ if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt;

²⁴ But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for I delight in these things,” says Yahweh.

¹² House of David, Yahweh says, ‘Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

¹⁷ But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”

¹⁶ Then the princes and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets: “This man is not worthy of death; for he has spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God.”

⁷ In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow.

¹⁹ Egypt will be a desolation, and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.

¹¹ Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.”

⁸ He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

⁹ “Thus has Yahweh of Armies spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother. ¹⁰ Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’ ¹¹ But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.

⁵ I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.

²⁷ Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

²⁵ then there will enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on David’s throne, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city will remain forever.

¹⁶ and said, “‘I have sworn by myself,’ says Yahweh, ‘because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son,

²⁸ Tell them, ‘As I live, says Yahweh, surely as you have spoken in my ears, so I will do to you. ²⁹ Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me, ³⁰ surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.

⁴⁰ For I lift up my hand to heaven and declare, as I live forever, ⁴¹ if I sharpen my glittering sword, my hand grasps it in judgment; I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay those who hate me. ⁴² I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy.”

¹⁹ But if you turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;

²² They shall answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and took other gods, worshiped them, and served them. Therefore he has brought all this evil on them.’”

¹¹ Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They won’t enter into my rest.”

²⁰ but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”

¹³ Now, because you have done all these works,” says Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer; ¹⁴ therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

²⁷ But if you will not listen to me to make the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem. It will not be quenched.”’”

⁶ then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.”’” ⁷ The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in Yahweh’s house. ⁸ When Jeremiah had finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You shall surely die! ⁹ Why have you prophesied in Yahweh’s name, saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, without inhabitant?’” All the people were crowded around Jeremiah in Yahweh’s house.

⁸ The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

⁸ “The Lord Yahweh has sworn by himself,” says Yahweh, the God of Armies: “I abhor the pride of Jacob, and detest his fortresses. Therefore I will deliver up the city with all that is in it.

⁷ Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Surely I will never forget any of their works. ⁸ Won’t the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

¹² Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

¹⁸ To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

¹³ For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself,

¹⁷ In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath,

²⁵ They sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

²⁵ Please let me go over and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that fine mountain, and Lebanon.”

³⁴ and a fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it.

¹⁵ His legs are like pillars of marble set on sockets of fine gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.

¹¹ Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,

¹ Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants. ² It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest. ³ The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word. ⁴ The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The lofty people of the earth languish. ⁵ The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶ Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell therein are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.

¹⁰ For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.

²⁰ Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

³⁴ Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a waste.”

¹¹ “I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

⁷ “‘“I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. ⁸ I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.

¹⁴ I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it will devour all that is around her.’”

²⁴ “As I live,” says Yahweh, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, I would still pluck you from there.

⁹ behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. ¹⁰ Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

¹⁸ “Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’

²⁷ “You shall tell them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “As I live, surely those who are in the waste places will fall by the sword. I will give he who is in the open field to the animals to be devoured; and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves will die of the pestilence. ²⁸ I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through.

³ What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth? ⁴ They will only bow down under the prisoners, and will fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. ⁵ Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation! ⁶ I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. ⁷ However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.

³³ Behold, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, will lop the boughs with terror. The tall will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. ³⁴ He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by the Mighty One.

³ I have commanded my consecrated ones; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, even my proudly exulting ones. ⁴ The noise of a multitude is in the mountains, as of a great people; the noise of an uproar of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! Yahweh of Armies is mustering the army for the battle. ⁵ They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

¹⁰ For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches. ¹¹ When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.

²⁴ By your servants, you have defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.

¹⁶ “Behold, I have created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame, and forges a weapon for his work; and I have created the destroyer to destroy. ¹⁷ No weapon that is formed against you will prevail; and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of Yahweh’s servants, and their righteousness is of me,” says Yahweh.

⁶ Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.” ⁷ A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

¹⁵ Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says Yahweh. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say.

²⁰ In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the iniquity of Israel will be sought for, and there will be none; also the sins of Judah, and they won’t be found; for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant. ²¹ “Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Kill and utterly destroy after them,” says Yahweh, “and do according to all that I have commanded you. ²² A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. ²³ How the hammer of the whole earth is cut apart and broken! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

¹ Then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, “Cause those who are in charge of the city to draw near, each man with his destroying weapon in his hand.” ² Behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which lies toward the north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand. One man in the middle of them was clothed in linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side. They went in, and stood beside the bronze altar. ³ The glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house; and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn by his side. ⁴ Yahweh said to him, “Go through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done within it.” ⁵ To the others he said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him, and strike. Don’t let your eye spare, neither have pity. ⁶ Kill utterly the old man, the young man, the virgin, little children and women; but don’t come near any man on whom is the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” Then they began at the old men who were before the house. ⁷ He said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” They went out, and struck in the city.

¹ Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars.

⁷ When the king heard that, he was angry, and sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

²³ that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath. ²⁴ Even all the nations will say, “Why has Yahweh done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?” ²⁵ Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, ²⁶ and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them.

⁸ Though this house is so high, yet everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land, and to this house?’ ⁹ and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought all this evil on them.’”

²⁰ then I will pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ²¹ This house, which is so high, everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shall say, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land and to this house?’ ²² They shall answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and took other gods, worshiped them, and served them. Therefore he has brought all this evil on them.’”

¹⁰ It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity? or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?’

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?” ¹⁶ All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.” ¹⁷ Yahweh has done that which he planned. He has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

¹² The kings of the earth didn’t believe, neither did all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.

⁷ “Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as it is today; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near, and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you.

²⁵ Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, ²⁶ and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them. ²⁷ Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book. ²⁸ Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

¹⁷ Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.’”

²⁵ Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath is poured out on this place, and it will not be quenched.’”’

¹⁷ “Haven’t you brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, when he led you by the way? ¹⁸ Now what do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? Or why do you to go on the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River? ¹⁹ “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.

² The captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said to him, “Yahweh your God pronounced this evil on this place; ³ and Yahweh has brought it, and done according as he spoke. Because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you.

⁷ All who found them have devoured them. Their adversaries said, ‘We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Yahweh, the habitation of righteousness, even Yahweh, the hope of their fathers.’

²⁰ ‘Therefore behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the evil which I will bring on this place.’”’” So they brought this message back to the king.

³⁰ His servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s place. ³¹ Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ³² He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, according to all that his fathers had done. ³³ Pharaoh Necoh put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of one hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. ³⁴ Pharaoh Necoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim; but he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there.

²³ The archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, “Take me away, because I am seriously wounded!” ²⁴ So his servants took him out of the chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and brought him to Jerusalem; and he died, and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. ²⁵ Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day; and they made them an ordinance in Israel. Behold, they are written in the lamentations.

² Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.

¹ The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil.

¹¹ For Yahweh says touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went out of this place: “He won’t return there any more.

¹⁸ Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’

⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

³ She brought up one of her cubs. He became a young lion. He learned to catch the prey. He devoured men. ⁴ The nations also heard of him. He was taken in their pit; and they brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt.

²⁸ But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

³¹ Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

³⁴ Pharaoh Necoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim; but he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there.

¹⁵ The sons of Josiah: the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, and the fourth Shallum.

¹² Then some of the heads of the children of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against those who came from the war,

²² So Hilkiah, and they whom the king had commanded, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter), and they spoke to her to that effect.

¹ Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father’s place in Jerusalem. ² Joahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. ³ The king of Egypt removed him from office at Jerusalem, and fined the land one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. ⁴ The king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.

¹³ “‘You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. “‘The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.

¹⁴ You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the foreigners who are in your land within your gates. ¹⁵ In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it; for he is poor and sets his heart on it; lest he cry against you to Yahweh, and it be sin to you.

³⁵ Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Necoh. ³⁶ Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. ³⁷ He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, according to all that his fathers had done.

⁴ The king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.

¹⁰ So that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves. ¹¹ They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

¹⁰ They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

⁹ Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! ¹⁰ You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul. ¹¹ For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it.

⁴ Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.

² the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but God’s ark dwells within curtains.”

⁵ He made the larger room with a ceiling of cypress wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and ornamented it with palm trees and chains.

¹⁹ He who loves disobedience loves strife. One who builds a high gate seeks destruction.

²⁷ Prepare your work outside, and get your fields ready. Afterwards, build your house.

¹⁷ The beams of our house are cedars. Our rafters are firs.

⁸ Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land! ⁹ In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.

⁹ All the people will know, including Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart,

³⁰ The king spoke and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

⁴ “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?

⁴ Whereas Edom says, “We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places;” Yahweh of Armies says, “They shall build, but I will throw down; and men will call them ‘The Wicked Land,’ even the people against whom Yahweh shows wrath forever.”

²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him,

⁴⁰ You shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which Yahweh your God gives you for all time.

¹⁵ David reigned over all Israel; and David executed justice and righteousness for all his people.

²⁰ Judah and Israel were numerous as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and making merry. ²¹ Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. ²² Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of fine flour, sixty measures of meal, ²³ ten head of fat cattle, twenty head of cattle out of the pastures, and one hundred sheep, in addition to deer, and gazelles, and roebucks, and fattened fowl.

⁹ Blessed is Yahweh your God, who delighted in you, to set you on the throne of Israel. Because Yahweh loved Israel forever, therefore he made you king, to do justice and righteousness.”

² He did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, and walked in all the way of David his father, and didn’t turn away to the right hand or to the left.

²⁵ There was no king like him before him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him.

² He did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, and walked in the ways of David his father, and didn’t turn away to the right hand or to the left.

⁷ Josiah gave to the children of the people, of the flock, lambs and young goats, all of them for the Passover offerings, to all who were present, to the number of thirty thousand, and three thousand bulls. These were of the king’s substance. ⁸ His princes gave a free will offering to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the rulers of God’s house, gave to the priests for the Passover offerings two thousand six hundred small livestock, and three hundred head of cattle.

¹² They removed the burnt offerings, that they might give them according to the divisions of the fathers’ houses of the children of the people, to offer to Yahweh, as it is written in the book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle. ¹³ They roasted the Passover with fire according to the ordinance. They boiled the holy offerings in pots, in cauldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the children of the people. ¹⁴ Afterward they prepared for themselves and for the priests, because the priests the sons of Aaron were busy with offering the burnt offerings and the fat until night. Therefore the Levites prepared for themselves and for the priests the sons of Aaron. ¹⁵ The singers the sons of Asaph were in their place, according to the commandment of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s seer; and the gatekeepers were at every gate. They didn’t need to depart from their service, because their brothers the Levites prepared for them. ¹⁶ So all the service of Yahweh was prepared the same day, to keep the Passover, and to offer burnt offerings on Yahweh’s altar, according to the commandment of king Josiah. ¹⁷ The children of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days. ¹⁸ There was no Passover like that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet, nor did any of the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept, with the priests, the Levites, and all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹ A Song of Ascents. Blessed is everyone who fears Yahweh, who walks in his ways. ² For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you.

²⁸ Love and faithfulness keep the king safe. His throne is sustained by love.

³ To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice.

⁵ Take away the wicked from the king’s presence, and his throne will be established in righteousness.

⁴ The king by justice makes the land stable, but he who takes bribes tears it down.

⁹ Open your mouth, judge righteously, and serve justice to the poor and needy.”

²⁴ There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.

⁷ Go your way—eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works. ⁸ Let your garments be always white, and don’t let your head lack oil. ⁹ Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity, for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun. ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.

¹⁷ Happy are you, land, when your king is the son of nobles, and your princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!

¹⁰ Tell the righteous “Good!” For they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

¹⁶ he will dwell on high. His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks. His bread will be supplied. His waters will be sure.

³ Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place.

⁵ “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in the land.

⁶ Whether it is good, or whether it is bad, we will obey the voice of Yahweh our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of Yahweh our God.”

⁴¹ But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.

⁴⁶ Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart,

³¹ Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

² There is no one as holy as Yahweh, for there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God.

⁹ You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

¹⁰ Those who know your name will put their trust in you, for you, Yahweh, have not forsaken those who seek you.

¹ By Solomon. God, give the king your justice; your righteousness to the royal son.

¹² For he will deliver the needy when he cries; the poor, who has no helper. ¹³ He will have pity on the poor and needy. He will save the souls of the needy.

³ “Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. ⁴ Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”

³¹ For he will stand at the right hand of the needy, to save him from those who judge his soul.

¹¹ Rescue those who are being led away to death! Indeed, hold back those who are staggering to the slaughter! ¹² If you say, “Behold, we didn’t know this,” doesn’t he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn’t he know it? Shall he not render to every man according to his work?

¹⁷ Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.”

³ “They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says Yahweh.

¹⁶ I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

³³ “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

¹⁹ They said therefore to him, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

⁵⁴ Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God. ⁵⁵ You have not known him, but I know him. If I said, ‘I don’t know him,’ I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and keep his word.

³ They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.

³ This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

⁶ I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word.

¹⁶ They profess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

³ This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. ⁴ One who says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him.

²¹ Moreover you shall provide out of all the people able men which fear God: men of truth, hating unjust gain; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.

²¹ When I saw among the plunder a beautiful Babylonian robe, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I coveted them and took them. Behold, they are hidden in the ground in the middle of my tent, with the silver under it.”

¹⁹ You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “Have you killed and also taken possession?”’ You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs will lick your blood, even yours.”’”

⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah; and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.

⁷ if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes, if any defilement has stuck to my hands,

³ For the wicked boasts of his heart’s cravings. He blesses the greedy and condemns Yahweh.

³⁶ Turn my heart toward your statutes, not toward selfish gain. ³⁷ Turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things. Revive me in your ways.

²² Then Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him, into Egypt; ²³ and they fetched Uriah out of Egypt, and brought him to Jehoiakim the king, who killed him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people. ²⁴ But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that they didn’t give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.

⁶ He went up and down among the lions. He became a young lion. He learned to catch the prey. He devoured men.

³¹ They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don’t do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain.

³ Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.

²¹ For from within, out of the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, sexual sins, murders, thefts, ²² covetings, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness.

¹⁵ He said to them, “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses.” ¹⁶ He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷ He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’ ¹⁸ He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”’ ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’ ²¹ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

¹³ No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You aren’t able to serve God and Mammon.” ¹⁴ The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at him.

²⁹ being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers,

¹⁰ nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom.

³ But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints; ⁴ nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not appropriate, but rather giving of thanks. ⁵ Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.

⁵ Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

⁹ But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

¹⁴ But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. ¹⁵ Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.

³ In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn’t linger, and their destruction will not slumber.

¹⁴ having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing; ¹⁵ Don’t love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s.

²⁶ I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

³³ The king lamented for Abner, and said, “Should Abner die as a fool dies? ³⁴ Your hands weren’t bound, and your feet weren’t put into fetters. As a man falls before the children of iniquity, so you fell.” All the people wept again over him. ³⁵ All the people came to urge David to eat bread while it was yet day; but David swore, saying, “God do so to me, and more also, if I taste bread, or anything else, until the sun goes down.” ³⁶ All the people took notice of it, and it pleased them; as whatever the king did pleased all the people. ³⁷ So all the people and all Israel understood that day that it was not of the king to kill Abner the son of Ner. ³⁸ The king said to his servants, “Don’t you know that a prince and a great man has fallen today in Israel?

³⁰ He laid his body in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!”

¹⁹ In process of time, at the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, and he died of severe diseases. His people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. ²⁰ He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He departed without being missed; and they buried him in David’s city, but not in the tombs of the kings.

²⁵ Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day; and they made them an ordinance in Israel. Behold, they are written in the lamentations.

⁴ “They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”

⁶ Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.

¹⁰ Don’t weep for the dead. Don’t bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he will return no more, and not see his native country.

⁵ You will die in peace; and with the burnings of your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so they will make a burning for you. They will lament you, saying, “Ah Lord!” for I have spoken the word,’ says Yahweh.”

¹⁰ therefore, behold, I will bring evil on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam everyone who urinates on a wall, he who is shut up and he who is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweeps away dung, until it is all gone.

²³ Yahweh also spoke of Jezebel, saying, “The dogs will eat Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel. ²⁴ The dogs will eat he who dies of Ahab in the city; and the birds of the sky will eat he who dies in the field.”

³⁵ They went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands.

⁶ Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him, and bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon.

³ “I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.

⁶ Therefore you go, and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth, Yahweh’s words, in the ears of the people in Yahweh’s house on the fast day. Also you shall read them in the ears of all Judah who come out of their cities.

¹² Yahweh said to Moses, “Go up into this mountain of Abarim, and see the land which I have given to the children of Israel.

⁴⁹ “Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is across from Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession.

⁷ The king of Egypt didn’t come out of his land any more; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that belonged to the king of Egypt.

⁵ They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. ⁶ The inhabitants of this coast land will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is our expectation, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria. And we, how will we escape?’”

¹ “Woe to the rebellious children”, says Yahweh, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin, ² who set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked my advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt! ³ Therefore the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. ⁴ For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors have come to Hanes. ⁵ They shall all be ashamed because of a people that can’t profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.” ⁶ The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people. ⁷ For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose; therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still.

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they don’t look to the Holy One of Israel, and they don’t seek Yahweh! ² Yet he also is wise, and will bring disaster, and will not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of those who work iniquity. ³ Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When Yahweh stretches out his hand, both he who helps shall stumble, and he who is helped shall fall, and they all shall be consumed together.

³⁶ Why do you go about so much to change your ways? You will be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.

³⁰ You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life.

²² The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

⁹ behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

¹⁷ Then I took the cup at Yahweh’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom Yahweh had sent me: ¹⁸ Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today; ¹⁹ Pharaoh king of Egypt, with his servants, his princes, and all his people; ²⁰ and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹ Edom, Moab, and the children of Ammon; ²² and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; ²³ Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who have the corners of their beard cut off; ²⁴ and all the kings of Arabia, all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the wilderness; ²⁵ and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; ²⁶ and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth. The king of Sheshach will drink after them. ²⁷ “You shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.”’

¹³ There is no one to plead your cause, that you may be bound up. You have no healing medicines. ¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased. ¹⁵ Why do you cry over your injury? Your pain is incurable. For the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you.

² She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

¹⁹ “I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.

⁹ “Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted.

²² “Therefore, Oholibah, the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side:

⁷ Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.

²⁴ You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you.

²⁷ For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. Behold, while I am yet alive with you today, you have been rebellious against Yahweh. How much more after my death?

¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation. ¹⁶ They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations. ¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread. ¹⁸ Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth. ¹⁹ Yahweh saw and abhorred, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. ²⁰ He said, “I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

¹¹ The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals. ¹² They abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger. ¹³ They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. ¹⁴ Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. ¹⁵ Wherever they went out, Yahweh’s hand was against them for evil, as Yahweh had spoken, and as Yahweh had sworn to them; and they were very distressed. ¹⁶ Yahweh raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. ¹⁷ Yet they didn’t listen to their judges; for they prostituted themselves to other gods, and bowed themselves down to them. They quickly turned away from the way in which their fathers walked, obeying Yahweh’s commandments. They didn’t do so. ¹⁸ When Yahweh raised up judges for them, then Yahweh was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it grieved Yahweh because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and troubled them. ¹⁹ But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. They didn’t cease what they were doing, or give up their stubborn ways.

¹⁶ but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy. ¹⁷ Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand.

¹⁶ “But they and our fathers behaved proudly, hardened their neck, didn’t listen to your commandments, ¹⁷ and refused to obey. They weren’t mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn’t forsake them. ¹⁸ Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies; ¹⁹ yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go. ²⁰ You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn’t withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst. ²¹ “Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell. ²² Moreover you gave them kingdoms and peoples, which you allotted according to their portions. So they possessed the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan. ²³ You also multiplied their children as the stars of the sky, and brought them into the land concerning which you said to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it. ²⁴ “So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they pleased. ²⁵ They took fortified cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled, became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness. ²⁶ “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies. ²⁷ Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who distressed them. In the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors who saved them out of the hands of their adversaries. ²⁸ But after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore you left them in the hands of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them; yet when they returned, and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times you delivered them according to your mercies, ²⁹ and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they were arrogant, and didn’t listen to your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances (which if a man does, he shall live in them), turned their backs, stiffened their neck, and would not hear. ³⁰ Yet many years you put up with them, and testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not listen. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. ³¹ “Nevertheless in your manifold mercies you didn’t make a full end of them, nor forsake them; for you are a gracious and merciful God. ³² Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness, don’t let all the travail seem little before you, that has come on us, on our kings, on our princes, on our priests, on our prophets, on our fathers, and on all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day. ³³ However you are just in all that has come on us; for you have dealt truly, but we have done wickedly. ³⁴ Also our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law, nor listened to your commandments and your testimonies with which you testified against them. ³⁵ For they have not served you in their kingdom, and in your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land which you gave before them. They didn’t turn from their wicked works. ³⁶ “Behold, we are servants today, and as for the land that you gave to our fathers to eat its fruit and its good, behold, we are servants in it. ³⁷ It yields much increase to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. Also they have power over our bodies and over our livestock, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.

⁶ We have sinned with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly. ⁷ Our fathers didn’t understand your wonders in Egypt. They didn’t remember the multitude of your loving kindnesses, but were rebellious at the sea, even at the Red Sea. ⁸ Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power known. ⁹ He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up; so he led them through the depths, as through a desert. ¹⁰ He saved them from the hand of him who hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. ¹¹ The waters covered their adversaries. There was not one of them left. ¹² Then they believed his words. They sang his praise. ¹³ They soon forgot his works. They didn’t wait for his counsel, ¹⁴ but gave in to craving in the desert, and tested God in the wasteland. ¹⁵ He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. ¹⁶ They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron, Yahweh’s saint. ¹⁷ The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram. ¹⁸ A fire was kindled in their company. The flame burned up the wicked. ¹⁹ They made a calf in Horeb, and worshiped a molten image. ²⁰ Thus they exchanged their glory for an image of a bull that eats grass. ²¹ They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, ²² wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome things by the Red Sea. ²³ Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn’t destroy them. ²⁴ Yes, they despised the pleasant land. They didn’t believe his word, ²⁵ but murmured in their tents, and didn’t listen to Yahweh’s voice. ²⁶ Therefore he swore to them that he would overthrow them in the wilderness, ²⁷ that he would overthrow their offspring among the nations, and scatter them in the lands. ²⁸ They joined themselves also to Baal Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead. ²⁹ Thus they provoked him to anger with their deeds. The plague broke in on them. ³⁰ Then Phinehas stood up and executed judgment, so the plague was stopped. ³¹ That was credited to him for righteousness, for all generations to come. ³² They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, so that Moses was troubled for their sakes; ³³ because they were rebellious against his spirit, he spoke rashly with his lips. ³⁴ They didn’t destroy the peoples, as Yahweh commanded them, ³⁵ but mixed themselves with the nations, and learned their works. ³⁶ They served their idols, which became a snare to them. ³⁷ Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. ³⁸ They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted with blood. ³⁹ Thus they were defiled with their works, and prostituted themselves in their deeds. ⁴⁰ Therefore Yahweh burned with anger against his people. He abhorred his inheritance. ⁴¹ He gave them into the hand of the nations. Those who hated them ruled over them. ⁴² Their enemies also oppressed them. They were brought into subjection under their hand. ⁴³ He rescued them many times, but they were rebellious in their counsel, and were brought low in their iniquity. ⁴⁴ Nevertheless he regarded their distress, when he heard their cry. ⁴⁵ He remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. ⁴⁶ He made them also to be pitied by all those who carried them captive. ⁴⁷ Save us, Yahweh, our God, gather us from among the nations, to give thanks to your holy name, to triumph in your praise! ⁴⁸ Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, from everlasting even to everlasting! Let all the people say, “Amen.” Praise Yah!

⁹ lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

⁸ Yes, you didn’t hear. Yes, you didn’t know. Yes, from of old your ear was not opened, for I knew that you dealt very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.

³¹ Generation, consider Yahweh’s word. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We have broken loose. We will come to you no more’?

²⁵ Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us; for we have sinned against Yahweh our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day. We have not obeyed Yahweh our God’s voice.”

¹⁶ Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

²² For I didn’t speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; ²³ but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ ²⁴ But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. ²⁵ Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. ²⁶ Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers. ²⁷ “You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸ You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Yahweh their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’

³⁰ “For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only that which was evil in my sight from their youth; for the children of Israel have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands, says Yahweh.

¹⁵ I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, ‘Every one of you must return now from his evil way, amend your doings, and don’t go after other gods to serve them, then you will dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers:’ but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me.

²¹ So the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll; and he took it out of the room of Elishama the scribe. Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king, and in the hearing of all the princes who stood beside the king. ²² Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month; and there was a fire in the brazier burning before him. ²³ When Jehudi had read three or four leaves, the king cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. ²⁴ The king and his servants who heard all these words were not afraid, and didn’t tear their garments. ²⁵ Moreover Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the scroll; but he would not listen to them. ²⁶ The king commanded Jerahmeel the king’s son, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to arrest Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet; but Yahweh hid them.

⁸ “‘“But they rebelled against me, and would not listen to me. They didn’t all throw away the abominations of their eyes. They also didn’t forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the middle of the land of Egypt.

¹³ “‘“But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They didn’t walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances, which if a man keeps, he shall live in them. They greatly profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them.

²¹ “‘“But the children rebelled against me. They didn’t walk in my statutes, and didn’t keep my ordinances to do them, which if a man does, he shall live in them. They profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.

²⁸ For when I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering. There they also made their pleasant aroma, and there they poured out their drink offerings.

³ They played the prostitute in Egypt. They played the prostitute in their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their youthful nipples were caressed there. ⁴ Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. ⁵ “Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine. She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors, ⁶ who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. ⁷ She gave herself as a prostitute to them, all of them the choicest men of Assyria. She defiled herself with the idols of whoever she lusted after. ⁸ She hasn’t left her prostitution since leaving Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her. They caressed her youthful nipples; and they poured out their prostitution on her. ⁹ “Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted. ¹⁰ These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters; and they killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her. ¹¹ “Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lusting than she, and in her prostitution which was more depraved than the prostitution of her sister. ¹² She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and rulers, her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. ¹³ I saw that she was defiled. They both went the same way. ¹⁴ “She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with red, ¹⁵ dressed with belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like princes, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. ¹⁶ As soon as she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them into Chaldea. ¹⁷ The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution. She was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them. ¹⁸ So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness. Then my soul was alienated from her, just like my soul was alienated from her sister. ¹⁹ Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ She lusted after their lovers, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. ²¹ Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the caressing of your nipples by the Egyptians because of your youthful breasts. ²² “Therefore, Oholibah, the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side: ²³ the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; all of them desirable young men, governors and rulers, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. ²⁴ They will come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples. They will set themselves against you with buckler, shield, and helmet all around. I will commit the judgment to them, and they will judge you according to their judgments. ²⁵ I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will be devoured by the fire. ²⁶ They will also strip you of your clothes, and take away your beautiful jewels. ²⁷ Thus I will make your lewdness to cease from you, and remove your prostitution from the land of Egypt; so that you will not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.’ ²⁸ “For the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated. ²⁹ They will deal with you in hatred, and will take away all your labor, and will leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your prostitution will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution. ³⁰ These things will be done to you, because you have played the prostitute after the nations, and because you are polluted with their idols. ³¹ You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand.’ ³² “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘You will drink of your sister’s cup, which is deep and large. You will be ridiculed and held in derision. It contains much. ³³ You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria. ³⁴ You will even drink it and drain it out. You will gnaw the broken pieces of it, and will tear your breasts; for I have spoken it,’ says the Lord Yahweh. ³⁵ “Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’” ³⁶ Yahweh said moreover to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations. ³⁷ For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through the fire to them to be devoured. ³⁸ Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths. ³⁹ For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and behold, they have done this in the middle of my house.

⁶ For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

⁸ The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit.

²⁶ As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so the house of Israel is ashamed: they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, ²⁷ who tell wood, ‘You are my father,’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me,’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us!’

³⁷ You will also leave that place with your hands on your head; for Yahweh has rejected those in whom you trust, and you won’t prosper with them.

¹¹ At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse; ¹² a full wind from these will come for me. Now I will also utter judgments against them.” ¹³ Behold, he will come up as clouds, and his chariots will be as the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are ruined.

³⁰ “An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land. ³¹ The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

²¹ For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

¹⁰ Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion under foot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

¹¹ But Yahweh is with me as an awesome mighty one. Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they won’t prevail. They will be utterly disappointed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which will never be forgotten.

¹ “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says Yahweh. ² Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says against the shepherds who feed my people: “You have scattered my flock, driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings,” says Yahweh.

²³ Behold, Yahweh’s storm, his wrath, has gone out, a sweeping storm: it will burst on the head of the wicked. ²⁴ The fierce anger of Yahweh will not return until he has accomplished, and until he has performed the intentions of his heart. In the latter days you will understand it.”

² “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and tell them, even the shepherds, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shouldn’t the shepherds feed the sheep? ³ You eat the fat. You clothe yourself with the wool. You kill the fatlings, but you don’t feed the sheep. ⁴ You haven’t strengthened the diseased. You haven’t healed that which was sick. You haven’t bound up that which was broken. You haven’t brought back that which was driven away. You haven’t sought that which was lost, but you have ruled over them with force and with rigor. ⁵ They were scattered, because there was no shepherd. They became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered. ⁶ My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill. Yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth. There was no one who searched or sought.” ⁷ “‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear Yahweh’s word: ⁸ “As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “surely because my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became food to all the animals of the field, because there was no shepherd. My shepherds didn’t search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and didn’t feed my sheep.” ⁹ Therefore, you shepherds, hear Yahweh’s word: ¹⁰ The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against the shepherds. I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep. The shepherds won’t feed themselves any more. I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them.”

¹⁹ The wind has wrapped her up in its wings; and they shall be disappointed because of their sacrifices.

¹⁵ Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of Yahweh coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure.

⁸ I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.

¹⁷ Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will be on his arm, and on his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!”

⁵¹ “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do. ⁵² Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.

²¹ He looked at the Kenite, and took up his parable, and said, “Your dwelling place is strong. Your nest is set in the rock.

²¹ A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God.

³⁰ You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life. ³¹ For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

²⁴ We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor.

¹³ Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain,’ says Yahweh. ‘You that say, “Who would come down against us?” or “Who would enter into our homes?”

⁶ For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

⁵ For Yahweh says: “We have heard a voice of trembling; a voice of fear, and not of peace. ⁶ Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

²⁸ You inhabitants of Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock. Be like the dove that makes her nest over the mouth of the abyss.

¹⁶ As for your terror, the pride of your heart has deceived you, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill, though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there,” says Yahweh.

⁴ “In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God. ⁵ They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’

¹⁵ I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”

¹⁴ They haven’t cried to me with their heart, but they howl on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They turn away from me.

² Though they dig into Sheol, there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down.

⁴ Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there,” says Yahweh.

⁹ Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!

¹ Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars. ² Wail, cypress tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down.

⁶ So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place. ⁷ The king of Egypt didn’t come out of his land any more; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that belonged to the king of Egypt. ⁸ Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.

¹⁶ The sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, and Zedekiah his son.

⁶ Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh.

²⁸ Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know?

¹ Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah.

²³ In that day, says Yahweh of Armies, I will take you, Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel,’ says Yahweh, ‘and will make you as a signet, for I have chosen you,’ says Yahweh of Armies.”

¹¹ Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the exile to Babylon. ¹² After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel became the father of Zerubbabel.

¹⁵ He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ All the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

²⁴ What the wicked fear, will overtake them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

⁷ Afterward,” says Yahweh, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, even those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. He will strike them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them, have pity, or have mercy.”’

²⁰ I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. ²¹ “I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of those who seek their life and into the hands of the king of Babylon’s army, who has gone away from you.

¹⁶ So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, “As Yahweh lives, who made us this soul, I will not put you to death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your life.”

⁸ Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.

¹⁵ He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

⁹ Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight. ¹⁰ At the return of the year, king Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the valuable vessels of Yahweh’s house, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁷ Behold, Yahweh will overcome you and hurl you away violently. Yes, he will grasp you firmly.

² It will happen, when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ then you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.”’ ³ “I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. ⁴ I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

⁹ They put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon. They brought him into strongholds, so that his voice should no more be heard on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁰ “‘Your mother was like a vine in your blood, planted by the waters. It was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters. ¹¹ It had strong branches for the scepters of those who ruled. Their stature was exalted among the thick boughs. They were seen in their height with the multitude of their branches. ¹² But it was plucked up in fury. It was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit. Its strong branches were broken off and withered. The fire consumed them. ¹³ Now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land. ¹⁴ Fire has gone out of its branches. It has devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong branch to be a scepter to rule.’ This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”

²⁷ In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison; ²⁸ and he spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon, ²⁹ and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life; ³⁰ and for his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him from the king, every day a portion, all the days of his life.

⁴ Bring joy to the soul of your servant, for to you, Lord, do I lift up my soul.

¹⁴ so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will escape or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for no one will return except those who will escape.’”

³¹ In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and released him from prison. ³² He spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon, ³³ and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life. ³⁴ For his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

³ When the people of Ashdod arose early on the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark. They took Dagon and set him in his place again. ⁴ When they arose early on the following morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold. Only Dagon’s torso was intact. ⁵ Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor any who come into Dagon’s house step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

²¹ They left their images there; and David and his men took them away.

¹⁷ The sons of Jeconiah, the captive: Shealtiel his son, ¹⁸ Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah. ¹⁹ The sons of Pedaiah: Zerubbabel and Shimei. The sons of Zerubbabel: Meshullam and Hananiah; and Shelomith was their sister; ²⁰ and Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab Hesed, five. ²¹ The sons of Hananiah: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah; the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, the sons of Obadiah, the sons of Shecaniah. ²² The son of Shecaniah: Shemaiah. The sons of Shemaiah: Hattush, Igal, Bariah, Neariah, and Shaphat, six. ²³ The sons of Neariah: Elioenai, Hizkiah, and Azrikam, three. ²⁴ The sons of Elioenai: Hodaviah, Eliashib, Pelaiah, Akkub, Johanan, Delaiah, and Anani, seven.

¹² I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.

¹⁸ If I go out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’”

¹ Then Yahweh said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight, and let them go out!

⁴ You, even of yourself, will discontinue from your heritage that I gave you. I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever.”

³⁰ Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne, and ruling in Judah.”

³⁸ On all the housetops of Moab, and in its streets, there is lamentation everywhere; for I have broken Moab like a vessel in which no one delights,” says Yahweh.

⁸ Israel is swallowed up. Now they are among the nations like a worthless thing.

¹² After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel became the father of Zerubbabel. ¹³ Zerubbabel became the father of Abiud. Abiud became the father of Eliakim. Eliakim became the father of Azor. ¹⁴ Azor became the father of Zadok. Zadok became the father of Achim. Achim became the father of Eliud. ¹⁵ Eliud became the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan. Matthan became the father of Jacob. ¹⁶ Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

²¹ Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? ²² What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,

²⁰ Now in a large house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of clay. Some are for honor, and some for dishonor. ²¹ If anyone therefore purges himself from these, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, and suitable for the master’s use, prepared for every good work.

²⁶ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

¹⁹ “Now therefore write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.

¹ Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

¹ The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. ² Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.

¹ Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it.

¹⁹ Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

² Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

¹ Listen now to what Yahweh says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say. ² Hear, you mountains, Yahweh’s controversy, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for Yahweh has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.

¹⁶ The sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, and Zedekiah his son. ¹⁷ The sons of Jeconiah, the captive: Shealtiel his son,

²⁰ Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, which brings about mischief by statute?

¹¹ Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the exile to Babylon.

³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. There will be no end to his Kingdom.”