Category:Book of Jeremiah/Part 2

'Note: This page contains Chapters 27-52 of the Book of Jeremiah. Click here for Chapters 1-26.'

Jeremiah Chapter 27
'The prophet sends chains to divers kings, signifying that they must bend their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon. The vessels of the temple shall not be brought back till all the rest are carried away.'

27:1. In the beginning of the reign of Joakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:

Joakim. . .This revelation was made to the prophet in the beginning of the reign of Joakim: but the bands were not sent to the princes here named before the reign of Zedekiah, ver. 3.



27:2. Thus says the Lord to me: Make bands, and chains: and you shall put them on your neck.

27:3. You shall send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon: by the hand of the messengers that are come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah the king of Judah.

27:4. You shall command them to speak to their masters: Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Thus shall you say to your masters:

27:5. I made the earth, and the men and the beasts that are upon the face of the earth, by my great power, and by my stretched out arm: and I have given it to whom it seemed good in my eyes.

27:6. Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon my servant: moreover also the beasts of the field I have given him to serve him.

27:7. All nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son: till the time come for his land and himself: and many nations and great kings shall serve him.

His son. . .Viz., Evilmerodach; and his son's son, Nabonydus, or Nabonadius, the Baltassar of Daniel, chap. 5., and the last of the Chaldean kings.



27:8. But the nation and kingdom that will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and whoever will not bend his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon: I will visit upon that nation with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, says the Lord: till I consume them by his hand.

27:9. Therefore hearken not to your prophets, and diviners, and dreamers, and soothsayers, and sorcerers, that say to you: You shall not serve the king of Babylon.

27:10. For they prophesy lies to you: to remove you far from your country, and cast you out, and to make you perish.

27:11. But the nation that shall bend down their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and shall serve him: I will let them remain in their own land, says the Lord: and they shall till it, and dwell in it.

27:12. I spoke to Zedekiah the king of Judah according to all these words, saying: Bend down your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, and his people, and you shall live.

27:13. Why will you die, you and your people by the sword, and by famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord has spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?

27:14. Hearken not to the words of the prophets that say to you: You shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they tell you a lie.

27:15. For I have not sent them, says the Lord: and they prophesy in my name falsely: to drive you out, and that you may perish, both you, and the prophets that prophesy to you.

27:16. I spoke also to the priests, and to this people, saying: Thus says the Lord: Hearken not to the words of your prophets, that prophesy to you, saying: Behold the vessels of the Lord shall now in a short time be brought again from Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you.

'''27:17. Therefore hearken not to them, but serve the king of Babylon, that you may live. Why should this city be given up to desolation?'''

27:18. But if they be prophets, and the word of the Lord be in them: let them interpose themselves before the Lord of hosts, that the vessels which were left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon.

27:19. For thus says the Lord of hosts to the pillars, and to the sea, and to the bases, and to the rest of the vessels that remain in this city:

27:20. Which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon did not take, when he carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the great men of Judah and Jerusalem.

27:21. For thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to the vessels that are left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah and Jerusalem:



27:22. They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall be until the day of their visitation, says the Lord: and I will cause them to be brought, and to be restored in this place.

Jeremiah Chapter 28
The false prophecy of Hananias: he dies that same year, as Jeremiah foretold.

28:1. It came to pass in that year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananias the son of Azur, a prophet of Gabaon spoke to me, in the house of the Lord before the priests, and all the people, saying:

28:2. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

28:3. As yet two years of days, and I will cause all the vessels of the house of the Lord to be brought back into this place, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon.

28:4. I will bring back to this place Jechonias the son of Joakim king of Judah, and all the captives of Judah, that are gone to Babylon, says the Lord: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

28:5. Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananias the prophet in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of all the people that stood in the house of the Lord:

28:6. Jeremiah the prophet said: Amen, the Lord do so: the Lord perform your words, which you have prophesied: that the vessels may be brought again into the house of the Lord, and all the captives may return out of Babylon to this place.

28:7. Nevertheless hear this word that I speak in your ears, and in the ears of all the people:

28:8. The prophets that have been before me, and before you from the beginning, and have prophesied concerning many countries, and concerning great kingdoms, of war, and of affliction, and of famine.

28:9. The prophet that prophesied peace: when his word shall come to pass, the prophet shall be known, whom the has sent in truth.

28:10. Hananias the prophet took the chain from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, and broke it.



28:11. Hananias spoke in the presence of all the people, saying: Thus says the Lord: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon after two full years from off the neck of all the nations.

'''28:12. Jeremiah the prophet went his way. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after that Hananias the prophet had broken the chain from off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, saying:'''

28:13. Go, and tell Hananias: Thus says the Lord: You have broken chains of wood, and you shall make for them chains of iron.

28:14. For thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: I have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations, to serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they shall serve him: moreover also I have given him the beasts of the earth.

28:15. Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananias the prophet: Hear now, Hananias: the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people to trust in a lie.

28:16. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold I will send you away from off the face of the earth: this year shall you die: for you have spoken against the Lord.

28:17. Hananias the prophet died in that year, in the seventh month.

Jeremiah Chapter 29
'Jeremiah writeth to the captives in Babylon, exhorting them to be easy there, and not to hearken to false prophets. That they shall be delivered after seventy years. But those that remain in Jerusalem shall perish by the sword, famine, and pestilence. That Achab, Zedekiah, and Semeias, false prophets, shall die miserably.'

29:1. Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the ancients that were carried into captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:



29:2. After that Jechonias the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, and the princes of Judah, and of Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the engravers were departed out of Jerusalem:

29:3. By the hand of Elasa the son of Saphan, and Gamarias the son of Helcias, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying:

29:4. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

29:5. Build ye houses, and dwell in them: and plant orchards, and eat the fruit of them.

29:6. Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters: and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, and let them bear sons and daughters: and be ye multiplied there, and be not few in number.

29:7. Seek the peace of the city, to which I have caused you to be carried away captives; and pray to the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall be your peace.

29:8. For thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Let not your prophets that are in the midst of you, and your diviners deceive you: and give no heed to your dreams which you dream:

29:9. For they prophesy falsely to you in my name: and I have not sent them, says the Lord.

29:10. For thus says the Lord: When the seventy years shall begin to be accomplished in Babylon, I will visit you: and I will perform my good word in your favor, to bring you again to this place.

29:11. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of affliction, to give you an end and patience.

'''29:12. You shall call upon me, and you shall go. You shall pray to me, and I will hear you.'''

29:13. You shall seek me, and shall find me: when you shall seek me with all your heart.

29:14. I will be found by you, says the Lord: and I will bring back your captivity, and I will gather you out of all nations, and from all the places to which I have driven you out, says the Lord: and I will bring you back from the place to which I caused you to be carried away captive.

29:15. Because you have said: The Lord has raised us up prophets in Babylon:



29:16. For thus says the Lord to the king that sitteth upon the throne of David, and to all the people that dwell in this city, to your brethren that are not gone forth with you into captivity.

29:17. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold I will send upon them the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence: and I will make them like bad figs that cannot be eaten, because they are very bad.

29:18. I will persecute them with the sword, and with famine, and with the pestilence: and I will give them up unto affliction to all the kingdoms of the earth: to be a curse, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach to all the nations to which I have driven them out:

29:19. Because they have not hearkened to my words, says the Lord: which I sent to them by my servants the prophets, rising by night, and sending: and you have not heard, says the Lord.

29:20. Hear ye therefore the word of the Lord, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent out from Jerusalem to Babylon.

29:21. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to Achab the son of Colias, and to Zedekiah the son of Maasias, who prophesy unto you in my name falsely: Behold I will deliver them up into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon: and he shall kill them before your eyes.

29:22. Of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah, that are in Babylon, saying: The Lord make you like Zedekiah, and like Achab, whom the king of Babylon fried in the fire:

29:23. Because they have acted folly in Israel, and have committed adultery with the wives of their friends, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I commanded them not: I am the judge and the witness, says the Lord.

29:24. To Semeias the Nehelamite you shall say:

29:25. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Because you have sent letters in your name to all the people that are in Jerusalem, and to Sophonias the son of Maasias the priest, and to all the priests, saying:

29:26. The Lord has made you priest instead of Joiada the priest, that you shouldst be ruler in the house of the Lord, over every man that raveth and prophesieth, to put him in the stocks, and into prison.

29:27. Now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah the Anathothite, who prophesieth to you?

29:28. For he has also sent to us in Babylon, saying: It is a long time: build ye houses, and dwell in them: and plant gardens, and eat the fruits of them.

29:29. So Sophonias the priest read this letter, in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet.

29:30. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

29:31. Send to all them of the captivity, saying: Thus says the Lord to Semeias the Nehelamite: Because Semeias has prophesied to you, and I sent him not: and has caused you to trust in a lie:

29:32. Therefore thus says the Lord: behold I will visit upon Semeias the Nehelamite, and upon his seed: he shall not have a man to sit in the midst of this people, and he shall not see the good that I will do to my people, says the Lord: because he has spoken treason against the Lord.

Jeremiah Chapter 30
God will deliver his people from their captivity: Christ shall be their king: and his church shall be glorious for ever.

30:1. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:



30:2. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, saying: Write you all the words that I have spoken to you, in a book.

30:3. For behold the days come, says the Lord, and I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, says the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

30:4. These are the words that the Lord has spoken to Israel and to Judah:

30:5. For thus says the Lord: We have heard a voice of terror: there is fear and no peace.

'''30:6. Ask ye, and see if a man bear children? why then have I seen every man with his hands on his loins, like a woman in labor, and all faces are turned yellow?'''

30:7. Alas, for that day is great, neither is there the like to it; and it is the time of tribulation to Jacob, but he shall be saved out of it.

30:8. It shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off your neck, and will burst his bands: and strangers shall no more rule over him:

30:9. But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up to them.

David. . .That is, Christ of the house of David.



30:10. Therefore fear you not, my servant Jacob, says the Lord, neither be dismayed, O Israel: for behold, I will save you from a country afar off, and your seed from the land of their captivity: and Jacob shall return, and be at rest, and abound with all good things, and there shall be none whom he may fear:

30:11. For I am with you, says the Lord, to save you: for I will utterly consume all the nations, among which I have scattered you: but I will not utterly consume you: but I will chastise you in judgment, that you may not seem to yourself innocent.

30:12. For thus says the Lord: Your bruise is incurable, your wound is very grievous.

30:13. There is none to judge your judgment to bind it up: you have no healing medicines.

30:14. All your lovers have forgotten you, and will not seek after you: for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with cruel chastisement: by reason of the multitude of your iniquities, your sins are hardened.

'''30:15. Why do you cry for your affliction? Your sorrow is incurable: for the multitude of your iniquity, and for your hardened sins I have done these things to you.'''

30:16. Therefore all they that devour you, shall be devoured: and all your enemies shall be carried into captivity: and they that waste you shall be wasted, and all that prey upon you will I give for a prey.

'''30:17. For I will close up your scar, and will heal you of your wounds, says the Lord. Because they have called you, O Sion, an outcast: This is she that has none to seek after her.'''

30:18. Thus says the Lord: Behold I will bring back the captivity of the pavilions of Jacob, and will have pity on his houses, and the city shall be built in her high place, and the temple shall be founded according to the order thereof.

30:19. Out of them shall come forth praise, and the voice of them that play: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be made few: and I will glorify them, and they shall not be lessened.

30:20. Their children shall be as from the beginning, and their assembly shall be permanent before me: and I will visit against all that afflict them.



30:21. Their leader shall be of themselves: and their prince shall come forth from the midst of them: and I will bring him near, and he shall come to me: for who is this that setteth his heart to approach to me, says the Lord?

30:22. You shall be my people: and I will be your God.

30:23. Behold the whirlwind of the Lord, his fury going forth, a violent storm, it shall rest upon the head of the wicked.

30:24. The Lord will not turn away the wrath of his indignation, till he have executed and performed the thought of his heart: in the latter days you shall understand these things.

Jeremiah Chapter 31
'The restoration of Israel. Rachel shall cease from morning. The new covenant. The church shall never fail.'

31:1. At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

31:2. Thus says the Lord: The people that were left and escaped from the sword, found grace in the desert: Israel shall go to his rest.

'''31:3. The Lord has appeared from afar to me. Yea I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn you, taking pity on you.'''



31:4. I will build you again, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: you shall again be adorned with your timbrels, and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry.

31:5. You shall yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and they shall not gather the vintage before the time.

31:6. For there shall be a day, in which the watchmen on mount Ephraim, shall cry: Arise, and let us go up to Sion to the Lord our God.

31:7. For thus says the Lord: Rejoice ye in the joy of Jacob, and neigh before the head of the Gentiles: shout ye, and sing, and say: Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.

31:8. Behold I will bring them from the north country, and will gather them from the ends of the earth and among them shall be the blind, and the lame, the woman with child, and she that is bringing forth, together, a great company of them returning hither.

31:9. They shall come with weeping: and I will bring them back in mercy: and I will bring them through the torrents of waters in a right way, and they shall not stumble in it: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.



31:10. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the islands that are afar off, and say: He that scattered Israel will gather him: and he will keep him as the shepherd doth his flock.

31:11. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and delivered him out of the hand of one that was mightier than he.

31:12. They shall come, and shall give praise in mount Sion: and they shall flow together to the good things of the Lord, for the corn, and wine, and oil, and the increase of cattle and herds, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall be hungry no more.

31:13. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, the young men and old men together: and I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them joyful after their sorrow.

31:14. I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness: and my people shall be filled with my good things, says the Lord.

31:15. Thus says the Lord: A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning, and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not.

31:16. Thus says the Lord: Let your voice cease from weeping, and your eyes tears: for there is a reward for your work, says the Lord: and they shall return out of the land of the enemy.



31:17. There is hope for your last end, says the Lord: and the children shall return to their own borders.

'''31:18. Hearing I heard Ephraim when he went into captivity: you have chastised me, and I was instructed, as a young bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Convert me, and I shall be converted, for you are the Lord my God.'''

31:19. For after you didst convert me, I did penance: and after you didst shew unto me, I struck my thigh: I am confounded and ashamed, because I have borne the reproach of my youth.

'''31:20. Surely Ephraim is an honourable son to me, surely he is a tender child: for since I spoke of him, I will still remember him. Therefore are my bowels troubled for him: pitying I will pity him, says the Lord.'''



31:21. Set you up a watchtower, make to you bitterness: direct your heart into the right way, wherein you have walked: return, O virgin of Israel, return to these your cities.

'''31:22. How long will you be dissolute in deliciousness, O wandering daughter? for the Lord has created a new thing upon the earth: A WOMAN SHALL COMPASS A MAN.'''

31:23. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As yet shall they say this word in the land of Judah, and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring back their captivity: The Lord bless you, the beauty of justice, the holy mountain.

31:24. Judah and all his cities shall dwell therein together: the husbandman and they that drive the flocks.

31:25. For I have inebriated the weary soul: and I have filled every hungry soul.

31:26. Upon this I was as it were awaked out of a sleep, and I saw, and my sleep was sweet to me.

31:27. Behold the days come, says the Lord: and I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of men, and with the seed of beasts.

31:28. As I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to throw down, and to scatter, and destroy, and afflict: so will I watch over them, to build up, and to plant them, says the Lord.



31:29. In those days they shall say no more: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.

31:30. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that shall eat the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

31:31. Behold the days shall come, says the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

31:32. Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, says the Lord.

31:33. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, says the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

31:34. They shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know me from the least of them even to the greatest, says the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.



31:35. Thus says the Lord, who giveth the sun for the light of the day, the order of the moon and of the stars, for the light of the night: who stirreth up the sea, and the waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is his name.

31:36. If these ordinances shall fail before me, says the Lord: then also the seed of Israel shall fail, so as not to be a nation before me for ever.

31:37. Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I also will cast away all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, says the Lord.

31:38. Behold the days come, says the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Hanameel even to the gate of the corner.

31:39. The measuring line shall go out farther in his sight upon the hill Gareb: and it shall compass Goatha,

31:40. The whole valley of dead bodies, and of ashes, and all the country of death, even to the torrent Cedron, and to the corner of the horse gate towards the east, the Holy of the Lord: it shall not be plucked up, and it shall not be destroyed any more for ever.

Jeremiah Chapter 32
Jeremiah by God's commandment purchases a field of his kinsman: and prophesies the return of the people out of captivity: and the everlasting covenant God will make with his church.

32:1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah: the same is the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.



32:2. At that time the army of the king of Babylon besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the house of the king of Judah.

32:3. For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying: Why do you prophesy, saying: Thus says the Lord: Behold I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it?

32:4. Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans: but he shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon: and he shall speak to him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall see his eyes.

'''32:5. He shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon: and he shall be there till I visit him, says the Lord. But if you will fight against the Chaldeans, you shall have no success.'''

32:6. Jeremiah said: The word of the Lord came to me, saying:



32:7. Behold, Hanameel the son of Sellum your cousin shall come to you, saying: Buy you my field, which is in Anathoth, for it is your right to buy it, being next akin.

'''32:8. Hanameel my uncle's son came to me, according to the word of the Lord, to the entry of the prison, and said to me: Buy my field, which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is thine, and you are next of kin to possess it. I understood that this was the word of the Lord.'''

32:9. I bought the field of Hanameel my uncle's son, that is in Anathoth: and I weighed him the money, seven staters, and ten pieces of silver.

32:10. I wrote it in a book and sealed it, and took witnesses: and I weighed him the money in the balances.

32:11. I took the deed of the purchase that was sealed, and the stipulations, and the ratifications with the seals that were on the outside.

32:12. I gave the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neri the son of Maasias in the sight of Hanameel my uncle's son, in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the book of the purchase, and before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison.

32:13. I charged Baruch before them, saying:

32:14. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Take these writings, this deed of the purchase that is sealed up, and this deed that is open: and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days.



32:15. For thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Houses, and fields, and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land.

32:16. After I had delivered the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neri, I prayed to the Lord, saying:

32:17. Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, behold you have made heaven and earth by your great power, and your stretched out arm: no word shall be hard to you:

32:18. You shewest mercy unto thousands, and returnest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: O most mighty, great, and powerful, the Lord of hosts is your name.

32:19. Great in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought: whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the children of Adam, to render unto every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his devices.



32:20. Who have set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt even until this day, and in Israel, and amongst men, and have made you a name as at this day.

32:21. Have brought forth your people Israel, out of the land of Egypt with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and a stretched out arm, and with great terror.

32:22. Have given them this land which you didst swear to their fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.

32:23. They came in, and possessed it: but they obeyed not your voice, and they walked not in your law: and they did not any of those things that you didst command them to do, and all these evils are come upon them.

32:24. Behold works are built up against the city to take it: and the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans, who fight against it, by the sword, and the famine, and the pestilence: and what you have spoken, is all come to pass, as you yourself see.

32:25. You say to me, O Lord God: Buy a field for money, and take witnesses, whereas the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans?

32:26. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

32:27. Behold I am the Lord the God of all flesh: shall any thing be hard for me?

32:28. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold I will deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans, and into the hands of the king of Babylon, and they shall take it.



32:29. The Chaldeans that fight against this city, shall come and set it on fire, and burn it, with the houses upon whose roofs they offered sacrifice to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to strange gods, to provoke me to wrath.

32:30. For the children of Israel, and the children of Judah, have continually done evil in my eyes from their youth: the children of Israel who even till now provoke me with the work of their hands, says the Lord.

32:31. For this city has been to me a provocation and indignation from the day that they built it, until this day, in which it shall be taken out of my sight.

32:32. Because of all the evil of the children of Israel, and of the children of Judah, which they have done, provoking me to wrath, they and their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

32:33. They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces: when I taught them early in the morning, and instructed them, and they would not hearken to receive instruction.

32:34. They have set their idols in the house, in which my name is called upon, to defile it.

32:35. They have built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Ennom, to consecrate their sons and their daughters to Moloch: which I commanded them not, neither entered it into my heart, that they should do this abomination, and cause Judah to sin.

32:36. Now, therefore, thus says the Lord the God of Israel to this city, whereof you say that it shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence:

32:37. Behold I will gather them together out of all the lands to which I have cast them out in my anger, and in my wrath, and in my great indignation: and I will bring them again into this place, and will cause them to dwell securely.

32:38. They shall be my people, and I will be their God.

32:39. I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me all days: and that it may be well with them, and with their children after them.

32:40. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and will not cease to do them good: and I will give my fear in their heart, that they may not revolt from me.

32:41. I will rejoice over them, when I shall do them good: and I will plant them in this land in truth, with my whole heart, and with all my soul.

32:42. For thus says the Lord: As I have brought upon this people all this great evil: so will I bring upon them all the good that I now speak to them.



32:43. Fields shall be purchased in this land: whereof you say that it is desolate, because there remaineth neither man nor beast, and it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.

32:44. Fields shall be bought for money, and deeds shall be written, and sealed, and witnesses shall be taken, in the land of Benjamin, and round about Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, and in the cities on the mountains, and in the cities of the plains, and in the cities that are towards the south: for I will bring back their captivity, says the Lord.

Jeremiah Chapter 33
God promises reduction from captivity, and other blessings: especially the coming of Christ, whose reign in his church shall be glorious and perpetual.

33:1. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying:

33:2. Thus says the Lord, who will do, and will form it, and prepare it, the Lord is his name.

33:3. Cry to me and I will hear you: and I will shew you great things, and sure things which you knowest not.

33:4. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel to the houses of this city, and to the houses of the king of Judah, which are destroyed, and to the bulwarks, and to the sword.

33:5. Of them that come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of the men whom I have slain in my wrath, and in my indignation, hiding my face from this city because of all their wickedness.

33:6. Behold I will close their wounds and give them health, and I will cure them: and I will reveal to them the prayer of peace and truth.

The prayer of peace. . .That is, the peace and welfare which they pray for.

33:7. I will bring back the captivity of Judah, and the captivity of Jerusalem: and I will build them as from the beginning.

33:8. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me: and I will forgive all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and despised me.



33:9. It shall be to me a name, and a joy, and a praise, and a gladness before all the nations of the earth, that shall hear of all the good things which I will do to them: and they shall fear and be troubled for all the good things, and for all the peace that I will make for them.

33:10. Thus says the Lord: There shall be heard again in this place (which you say is desolate, because there is neither man nor beast: in the cities of Judah, and without Jerusalem, which are desolate without man, and without inhabitant, and without beast)

33:11. The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say: Give ye glory to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for his mercy endureth for ever: and of them that shall bring their vows into the house of the Lord: for I will bring back the captivity of the land as at the first, says the Lord.

33:12. Thus says the Lord of hosts: There shall be again in this place that is desolate without man, and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

33:13. In the cities on the mountains, and in the cities of the plains, and in the cities that are towards the south: and in the land of Benjamin, and round about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah shall the flocks pass again under the hand of him that numbereth them, says the Lord.

33:14. Behold the days come, says the Lord, that I will perform the good word that I have spoken to the house of Israel, and to the house of Judah.



33:15. In those days, and at that time, I will make the bud of justice to spring forth unto David, and he shall do judgment and justice in the earth.

33:16. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell securely: and this is the name that they shall call him, The Lord our just one.

33:17. For thus says the Lord: There shall not be cut off from David a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel.

33:18. Neither shall there be cut off from the priests and Levites a man before my face to offer holocausts, and to burn sacrifices, and to kill victims continually.

33:19. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

33:20. Thus says the Lord: if my covenant, with the day can be made void, and my covenant with the night, that there should not be day and night in their season:

33:21. Also my covenant with David my servant may be made void, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites and priests my ministers.



33:22. As the stars of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea be measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites my ministers.

33:23. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

33:24. Have you not seen what this people has spoken, saying: The two families which the Lord had chosen, are cast off: and they have despised my people, so that it is no more a nation before them?

Two families, etc. . .Viz., the families of the kings and priests.

'''33:25. Thus says the Lord. If I have not set my covenant between day and night, and laws to heaven and earth:'''

33:26. Surely I will also cast off the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so as not to take any of his seed to be rulers of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will bring back their captivity, and will have mercy on them.

Jeremiah Chapter 34
The prophet foretells that Zedekiah shall fall into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar: God's sentence upon the princes and people that had broken his covenant.

34:1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth, that were under the power of his hand, and all the people fought against Jerusalem and against all the cities thereof, saying:

34:2. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and say to him: Thus says the Lord: Behold I will deliver this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

34:3. You shall not escape out of his hand: but you shall surely be taken, and you shall be delivered into his hand: and your eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and his mouth shall speak with your mouth, and you shall go to Babylon.

34:4. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah king of Judah: Thus says the Lord to you: You shall not die by the sword.

34:5. But you shall die in peace, and according to the burnings of your fathers, the former kings that were before you, so shall they burn you: and they shall mourn for you, saying: Alas, Lord: for I have spoken the word, says the Lord.

Die in peace. . .That is, by a natural death.

34:6. Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah the king of Judah in Jerusalem.

34:7. The army of the king of Babylon fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachis, and against Azecha: for these remained of the cities of Judah, fenced cities.

34:8. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after that king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem making a proclamation:

34:9. That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, go free: and that they should not lord it over them, to wit, over the Jews their brethren.

34:10. All the princes, and all the people who entered into the covenant, heard that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant go free, and should no more have dominion over them: and they obeyed, and let them go free.

34:11. But afterwards they turned: and brought back again their servants and their handmaids, whom they had let go free, and brought them into subjection as menservants and maidservants.

34:12. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:

34:13. Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying:

34:14. At the end of seven years, let ye go every man his brother being a Hebrew, who has been sold to you, so he shall serve you six years: and you shall let him go free from you: and your fathers did not hearken to me, nor did they incline their ear.

34:15. You turned to day, and did that which was right in my eyes, in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother: and you made a covenant in my sight, in the house upon which my name is invocated.

34:16. You are fallen back, and have defiled my name: and you have brought back again every man his manservant, and every man his maidservant, whom you had let go free, and set at liberty: and you have brought them into subjection to be your servants and handmaids.

34:17. Therefore thus says the Lord: You have not hearkened to me, in proclaiming liberty every man to his brother and every man to his friend: behold I proclaim a liberty for you, says the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine: and I will cause you to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth.



34:18. I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, and have not performed the words of the covenant which they agreed to in my presence, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts thereof:

34:19. The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land that passed between the parts of the calf:

34:20. I will give them into the hands of their enemies, and into the hands of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat to the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the earth.

34:21. Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, I will give into the hands of their enemies, and into the hands of them that seek their lives, and into the hands of the armies of the king of Babylon, which are gone from you.

34:22. Behold I will command, says the Lord, and I will bring them again to this city, and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without an inhabitant.

Jeremiah Chapter 35
'The obedience of the Rechabites condemns the disobedience of the Jews. The reward of the Rechabites.'

35:1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Joakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying:

35:2. Go to the house of the Rechabites: and speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers of the treasures, and you shall give them wine to drink.

Rechabites. . .These were of the race of Jethro, father in law to Moses.

35:3. I took Jezonias the son of Jeremiah the son of Habsanias, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites.

35:4. I brought them into the house of the Lord, to the treasure house of the sons of Hanan, the son of Jegedelias the man of God, which was by the treasure house of the princes, above the treasure of Maasias the son of Sellum, who was keeper of the entry.

35:5. I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups: and I said to them: Drink ye wine.

35:6. They answered : We will not drink wine: because Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying: You shall drink no wine, neither you, nor your children, for ever:

35:7. Neither shall ye build houses, nor sow reed, nor plant vineyards, nor have any: but you shall dwell in tents all your days, that you may live many days upon the face of the earth, in which you are strangers.

35:8. Therefore we have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all things that he commanded us: so as to drink no wine all our days: neither we, nor our wives, nor our sons, nor our daughters:

35:9. Nor to build houses to dwell in, nor to have vineyard, or field, or seed:

35:10. But we have dwelt in tents, and have been obedient according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.



35:11. But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to our land, we said: Come, let us go into Jerusalem from the face of the army of the Chaldeans, and from the face of the army of Syria: and we have remained in Jerusalem.

35:12. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying:

35:13. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Go, and say to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Will you not receive instruction, to obey my words, says the Lord?

35:14. The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, by which he commanded his sons not to drink wine, have prevailed: and they have drunk none to this day, because they have obeyed the commandment of their father: but I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, and you have not obeyed me.

35:15. I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early, and sending and saying: Return ye every man from his wicked way, and make your ways good: and follow not strange gods, nor worship them, and you shall dwell in the land, which I gave you and your fathers: and you have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened to me.

35:16. So the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have constantly kept the commandment of their father, which he commanded them: but this people has not obeyed me.

35:17. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will bring upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them, and they have not heard: I have called to them, and they have not answered me.

35:18. Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites: Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and have kept all his precepts, and have done all that he commanded you:

35:19. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: There shall not be wanting a man of the race of Jonadab the son of Rechab, standing before me for ever.

Jeremiah Chapter 36
'Jeremiah sends Baruch to read his prophecies in the temple; the book is brought to king Joakim, who burns it. The prophet denounces his judgment, and causes Baruch to write a new copy.'

36:1. It came to pass in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah by the Lord, saying:

36:2. Take you a roll of a book, and you shall write in it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah, and against all the nations from the day that I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day.

36:3. If so be, when the house of Judah shall hear all the evils that I purpose to do unto them, that they may return every man from his wicked way: and I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin.

36:4. So Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Nerias: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which he spoke to him, upon the roll of a book.

36:5. Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying: I am shut up, and cannot go into the house of the Lord.

Shut up. . .Not that the prophet was now in prison; for the contrary appears from ver. 19, but that he kept himself shut up, by reason of the persecutions he had lately met with. See chap. 26.

36:6. Go you in therefore, and read out of the volume, which you have written from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in the hearing of all the people in the house of the Lord on the fasting day: and also you shall read them in the hearing of all Judah that come out of their cities:

36:7. If so be they may present their supplication before the Lord, and may return every one from his wicked way: for great is the wrath and indignation which the Lord has pronounced against this people.

36:8. Baruch the son of Nerias did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet had commanded him, reading out of the volume the words of the Lord in the house of the Lord.

36:9. It came to pass in the fifth year of Joakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that were come together out of the cities of Judah to Jerusalem.

36:10. Baruch read out of the volume the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, in the treasury of Gamarias the son of Saphan the scribe, in the upper court, in the entry of the new gate of the house of the Lord, in the hearing of all the people.

36:11. When Micheas the son of Gamarias the son of Saphan had heard out of the book all the words of the Lord,

36:12. He went down into the king's house to the secretary's chamber: and behold all the princes sat there, Elisama the scribe, and Dalaias the son of Semeias, and Elnathan the son of Achobor, and Gamarias the son of Saphan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananias, and all the princes.

36:13. Micheas told them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read out of the volume in the hearing of the people.

'''36:14. Therefore all the princes sent Judi the son of Nathanias, the son of Selemias, the son of Chusi, to Baruch, saying: Take in your hand the volume in which you have read in the hearing of the people, and come. So Baruch the son of Nerias took the volume in his hand, and came to them.'''

'''36:15. They said to him: Sit down and read these things in our hearing. Baruch read in their hearing.'''

36:16. When they had heard all the words, they looked upon one another with astonishment, and they said to Baruch: We must tell the king all these words.

36:17. They asked him, saying: Tell us how did you write all these words from his mouth.



36:18. Baruch said to them: With his mouth he pronounced all these words as if he were reading to me: and I wrote in a volume with ink.



36:19. The princes said to Baruch: Go, and hide you, both you and Jeremiah, and let no man know where you are.

36:20. They went in to the king into the court: but they laid up the volume in the chamber of Elisama the scribe: and they told all the words in the hearing of the king.

36:21. The king sent Judi that he should take the volume: who bringing it out of the chamber of Elisama the scribe, read it in the hearing of the king, and of all the princes that stood about the king.

36:22. Now the king sat in the winter house, in the ninth month: and there was a hearth before him full of burning coals.

36:23. When Judi had read three or four pages, he cut it with the penknife, and he cast it into the fire, that was upon the hearth, until all the volume was consumed with the fire that was on the hearth.

36:24. The king and all his servants that heard all these words were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments.

36:25. But yet Elnathan, and Dalaias, and Gamarias spoke to the king, not to burn the book: and he heard them not.

36:26. The king commanded Jeremiel the son of Amelech, and Saraias the son of Ezriel, and Selemias the son of Abdeel, to take up Baruch the scribe, and Jeremiah the prophet: but the Lord hid them.

36:27. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, after that the king had burnt the volume, and the words that Baruch had written from the mouth of Jeremiah, saying:

36:28. Take you again another volume: and write in it all the former words that were in the first volume which Joakim the king of Judah both burnt.



36:29. You shall say to Joakim the king of Judah: Thus says the Lord: You have burnt that volume, saying: Why have you written therein, and said: The king of Babylon shall come speedily, and shall lay waste this land: and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast?

36:30. Therefore thus says the Lord against Joakim the king of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day, and to the frost by night.

He shall have none, etc. . .Because his son Joachin or Jechonias, within three months after the death of his father, was carried away to Babylon, so that his reign is not worthy of notice.

36:31. I will punish him, and his seed and his servants, for their iniquities, and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah all the evil that I have pronounced against them, but they have not heard.

36:32. Jeremiah took another volume, and gave it to Baruch the son of Nerias the scribe: who wrote in it from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Joakim the king of Judah had burnt with fire: and there were added besides many more words than had been before.

Jeremiah Chapter 37
'Jeremiah prophesies that the Chaldeans, who had departed from Jerusalem, would return and burn the city. He is cast into prison. His conference with Zedekiah.'

37:1. Now king Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned instead of Jechonias the son of Joakim: whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah.

37:2. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land did obey the words of the Lord, that he spoke in the hand of Jeremiah the prophet.

37:3. King Zedekiah sent Juchal the son of Selemias, and Sophonias the son of Maasias the priest to Jeremiah the prophet, saying: Pray to the Lord our God for us.



'''37:4. Now Jeremiah walked freely in the midst of the people: for they had not as yet cast him into prison. The army of Pharaoh was come out of Egypt: and the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem, hearing these tidings, departed from Jerusalem.'''

37:5. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

37:6. Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: Thus shall you say to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of me: Behold the army of Pharaoh, which is come forth to help you, shall return into their own land, into Egypt.

37:7. The Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire.

37:8. Thus says the Lord: Deceive not your souls, saying: The Chaldeans shall surely depart and go away from us: for they shall not go away.



37:9. But if you should even beat all the army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there should be left of them some wounded men: they shall rise up, every man from his heart, and burn this city with fire.

37:10. Now when the army of the Chaldeans was gone away from Jerusalem, because of Pharaoh's army,

'''37:13. Jeremiah answered: It is not so, I am not fleeing to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him: so Jerias took Jeremiah and brought him to the princes.'''

37:14. Wherefore the princes were angry with Jeremiah, and they beat him, and cast him into the prison that was in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for he was chief over the prison.

37:15. So Jeremiah went into the house of the prison, and into the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained there many days.

'''37:16. Then Zedekiah the king, sending, took him: and asked him secretly in his house, and said: Is there, thinkest you, any word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said. There is. He said: You shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.'''

37:17. Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah: In what have I offended against you, or your servants, or your people, that you have cast me into prison?

37:18. Where are your prophets that prophesied to you, and said: The king of Babylon shall not come against you, and against this land?

37:19. Now therefore hear, I beseech you, my lord the king: let my petition be accepted in your sight: and send me not back into the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.



37:20. Then king Zedekiah commanded that Jeremiah should be committed into the entry of the prison: and that they should give him daily a piece of bread, beside broth, till all the bread in the city were spent: and Jeremiah remained in the entry of the prison.

Jeremiah Chapter 38
The prophet at the instance of the great men is cast into a filthy dungeon: he is drawn out by Abdemelech, and has another conference with the king.

38:1. Now Saphatias the son of Mathan, and Gedelias the son of Phassur, and Juchal the son of Selemias, and Phassur the son of Melchias heard the words that Jeremiah spoke to all the people, saying:



38:2. Thus says the Lord: Whosoever shall remain in this city, shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence: but he that shall go forth to the Chaldeans, shall live, and his life shall be safe, and he shall live.

38:3. Thus says the Lord: This city shall surely be delivered into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.

'''38:4. The princes said to the king. We beseech you that this man may be put to death: for on purpose he weakeneth the hands of the men of war, that remain in this city, and the hands of the people, speaking to them according to these words: for this man seeketh not peace to this people, but evil.'''

38:5. King Zedekiah said: Behold he is in your hands: for it is not lawful for the king to deny you any thing.

'''38:6. Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Melchias the son of Amelech, which was in the entry of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah by ropes into the dungeon, wherein there was no water, but mire. Jeremiah sunk into the mire.'''

38:7. Now Abdemelech the Ethiopian, an eunuch that was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon: but the king was sitting in the gate of Benjamin.

38:8. Abdemelech went out of the king's house, and spoke to the king, saying:

38:9. My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done against Jeremiah the prophet, casting him into the dungeon to die there with hunger, for there is no more bread in the city.

38:10. Then the king commanded Abdemelech the Ethiopian, saying: Take from hence thirty men with you, and draw up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die.

38:11. So Abdemelech taking the men with him, went into the king's house that was under the storehouse: and he took from thence old rags, and old rotten things, and he let them down by cords to Jeremiah into the dungeon.

38:12. Abdemelech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah: Put these old rags and these rent and rotten things under your arms, and upon the cords: and Jeremiah did so.

'''38:13. They drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and brought him forth out of the dungeon. Jeremiah remained in the entry of the prison.'''

38:14. King Zedekiah sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet to him to the third gate, that was in the house of the Lord: and the king said to Jeremiah: I will ask you a thing, hide nothing from me.

'''38:15. Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah: If I shall declare it to you, will you not put me to death? and if I give you counsel, you will not hearken to me.'''

38:16. Then king Zedekiah swore to Jeremiah, in private, saying: As the Lord lives, that, made us this soul, I will not put you to death, nor will I deliver you into the hands of these men that seek your life.

38:17. Jeremiah said to Zedekiah: Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: If you will take a resolution and go out to the princes of the king of Babylon, your soul shall live, and this city shall not be burnt with fire: and you shall be safe, and your house.



38:18. But if you will not go out to the princes of the king of Babylon, this city shall be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire: and you shall not escape out of their hand.

38:19. King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah: I am afraid because of the Jews that are fled over to the Chaldeans: lest I should be delivered into their hands, and they should abuse me.

38:20. But Jeremiah answered: They shall not deliver you: hearken, I beseech you, to the word of the Lord, which I speak to the, and it shall be well with you, and your soul shall live.

38:21. But if you will not go forth, this is the word which the Lord has shown me:

38:22. Behold all the women that are left in the house of the king of Judah, shall be brought out to the princes of the king of Babylon: and they shall say: Your men of peace have deceived you, and have prevailed against you, they have plunged your feet in the mire, and in a slippery place and they have departed from you.

Your men of peace. . .Viri pacifici tui. That is your false friends promising you peace and happiness, and by their evil counsels involving you in misery.

38:23. All your wives, and your children shall be brought out to the Chaldeans, and you shall not escape their hands, but you shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall burn this city with fire.

38:24. Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah: Let no man know these words, and you shall not die.

38:25. But if the princes shall hear that I have spoken with you, and shall come to you, and say to you: Tell us what you have said to the king, hide it not from us, and we will not kill you: and also what the king said to you:

38:26. You shall say to them: I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not command me to be carried back into the house of Jonathan, to die there.

38:27. So all the princes came to Jeremiah, and asked him: and he spoke to them according to all the words that the king had commanded him: and they left him: for nothing had been heard.

38:28. But Jeremiah remained in the entry of the prison, until the day that Jerusalem was taken: and it came to pass that Jerusalem was taken.

Jeremiah Chapter 39
'After two years' siege Jerusalem is taken. Zedekiah is carried before Nebuchadnezzar, who kills his sons in his sight, and then puts out his eyes. Jeremiah is set at liberty.'

39:1. In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army to Jerusalem, and they besieged it.

39:2. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the fifth day of the month, the city was opened.

39:3. All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate: Neregel, Sereser, Semegarnabu, Sarsachim, Rabsares, Neregel, Serezer, Rebmag, and all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.



39:4. When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled: and they went forth in the night out of the city by the way of the king's garden, and by the gate that was between the two walls, and they went out to the way of the desert.

39:5. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them: and they took Zedekiah in the plain of the desert of Jericho, and when they had taken him, they brought him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Reblatha, which is in the land of Emath: and he gave judgment upon him.

39:6. The king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah, in Reblatha, before his eyes: and the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.

39:7. He also put out the eyes of Zedekiah: and bound him with fetters, to be carried to Babylon.



39:8. The Chaldeans burnt the king's house, and the houses of the people with fire, and they threw down the wall of Jerusalem.

39:9. Nabuzardan the general of the army carried away captive to Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and the fugitives that had gone over to him, and the rest of the people that remained.

39:10. But Nabuzardan the general left some of the poor people that had nothing at all, in the land of Judah, and he gave them vineyards, and cisterns at that time.

39:11. Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given charge to Nabuzardan the general concerning Jeremiah, saying:

39:12. Take him, and set your eyes upon him, and do him no harm: but as he has a mind, so do with him.

39:13. Therefore Nabuzardan the general sent, and Nabuzardan, and Rabsares, and Neregel, and Sereser, and Rebmag, and all the nobles of the king of Babylon,

39:14. Sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison, and committed him to Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan, that he might go home, and dwell among the people.

39:15. But the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, when he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying: Go, and tell Abdemelech the Ethiopian, saying:

39:16. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will bring my words upon this city unto evil, and not unto good: and they shall be accomplished in your sight in that day.

39:17. I will deliver you in that day, says the Lord: and you shall not be given into the hands of the men whom you fearest:

39:18. But delivering, I will deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword: but your life shall be saved for you, because you have put your trust in me, says the Lord.

Jeremiah Chapter 40
Jeremiah remains with Godolias the governor; who receives all the Jews that resort to him.

40:1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after that Nabuzardan the general had let him go from Rama, when he had taken him, being bound with chains, among all them that were carried away from Jerusalem and Judah, and were carried to Babylon.

40:2. The general of the army taking Jeremiah, said to him: The Lord your God has pronounced this evil upon this place,

40:3. He has brought it: and the Lord has done as he has said: because you have sinned against the Lord, and have not hearkened to his voice, and this word is come upon you.



40:4. Now then behold I have loosed you this day from the chains which were upon your hands: if it please you to come with me to Babylon, come: and I will set my eyes upon you: but if it do not please you to come with me to Babylon, stay here: behold all the land is before you, as you shall choose, and whither it shall please you to go, thither go.

'''40:5. Come not with me: but dwell with Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah: dwell therefore with him in the midst of the people: or whithersoever it shall please you to go, go. The general of the army gave him victuals and presents, and let him go.'''

40:6. Jeremiah went to Godolias the son of Ahicam to Masphath: and dwelt with him in the midst of the people that were left in the land.

40:7. When all the captains of the army that were scattered through the countries, they and their companions, had heard that the king of Babylon had made Godolias the son of Ahicam governor of the country, and that he had committed unto him men and women, and children, and of the poor of the land, them that had not been carried away captive to Babylon:

40:8. They came to Godolias to Masphath: and Ismahel the son of Nathanias, and Johanan, and Jonathan, the sons of Caree, and Sareas the son of Thanehumeth, and the children of Ophi, that were of Netophathi, and Jezonias the son of Maachati, they and their men.

40:9. Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan swore to them and to their companions, saying: Fear not to serve the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.



40:10. Behold I dwell in Masphath, that I may answer the commandment of the Chaldeans that are sent to us: but as for you, gather ye the vintage, and the harvest, and the oil, and lay it up in your vessels, and abide in your cities which you hold.

40:11. Moreover all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and in all the countries, when they heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant in Judea, and that he had made Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan ruler over them:

40:12. All the Jews, I say, returned out of all the places to which they had fled, and they came into the land of Judah to Godolias to Masphath: and they gathered wine, and a very great harvest.

40:13. Then Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the army, that had been scattered about in the countries, came to Godolias to Masphath.

'''40:14. They said to him: Know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon has sent Ismahel the son of Nathanias to kill you. Godolias the son of Ahicam believed them not.'''

40:15. But Johanan the son of Caree, spoke to Godolias privately in Masphath, saying: I will go, and I will kill Ismahel the son of Nathanias, and no man shall know it, lest he kill you, and all the Jews be scattered, that are gathered unto you, and the remnant of Judah perish.

40:16. Godolias the son of Ahicam said to Johanan the son of Caree: Do not this thing: for what you sayst of Ismahel is false.

Jeremiah Chapter 41
Godolias is slain: the Jews that were with him are apprehensive of the Chaldeans.



41:1. It came to pass in the seventh month, that Ismahel the son of Nathanias, the son of Elisama of the royal blood, and the nobles of the king, and ten men with him, came to Godolias the son of Ahicam into Masphath: and they ate bread there together in Masphath.

41:2. Ismahel the son of Nathanias arose, and the ten men that were with him, and they struck Godolias the son of Ahicam, the son of Saphan with the sword, and slew him whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land.

41:3. Ismahel slew also all the Jews that were with Godolias in Masphath, and the Chaldeans that were found there, and the soldiers.

41:4. On the second day after he had killed Godolias, no man yet knowing it,

41:5. There came some from Sichem, and from Silo, and from Samaria, fourscore men, with their beards shaven, and their clothes rent, and mourning: and they had offerings and incense in their hand, to offer in the house of the Lord.

41:6. Ismahel the son of Nathanias went forth from Masphath to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and when he had met them, he said to them: Come to Godolias, the son of Ahicam.

41:7. When they were come to the midst of the city, Ismahel the son of Nathanias, slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he and the men that were with him.



'''41:8. But ten men were found among them, that said to Ismahel: Kill us not: for we have stores in the field, of wheat, and barley, and oil, and honey. He forbore, and slew them not with their brethren.'''

41:9. The pit into which Ismahel cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he slew because of Godolias, is the same that king Asa made, for fear of Baasa the king of Israel: the same did Ismahel the son of Nathanias fill with them that were slain.

'''41:10. Then Ismahel carried away captive all the remnant of the people that were in Masphath: the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Masphath: whom Nabuzardan the general of the army had committed to Godolias the son of Ahicam. Ismahel the son of Nathanias took them, and he departed, to go over to the children of Ammon.'''

41:11. But Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the fighting men that were with him, heard of the evil that Ismahel the son of Nathanias had done.

41:12. Taking all the men, they went out to fight against Ismahel the son of Nathanias, and they found him by the great waters that are in Gabaon.

41:13. When all the people that were with Ismahel, had seen Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the fighting men that were with him, they rejoiced.

41:14. All the people whom Ismahel had taken, went back to Masphath: and they returned and went to Johanan the son of Caree.

41:15. But Ismahel the son of Nathanias fled with eight men, from the face of Johanan, and went to the children of Ammon.

41:16. Then Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the soldiers that were with him, took all the remnant of the people whom they had recovered from Ismahel the son of Nathanias, from Masphath, after that he had slain Godolias the son of Ahicam: valiant men for war, and the women, and the children, and the eunuchs whom he had brought back from Gabaon.

41:17. They departed, and sat as sojourners in Chamaam, which is near Bethlehem: in order to go forward, and enter into Egypt,

41:18. From the face of the Chaldeans: for they were afraid of them, because Ismahel the son of Nathanias had slain Godolias the son of Ahicam, whom the king of Babylon had made governor in the land of Judah.

Jeremiah Chapter 42
Jeremiah assures the remnant of the people, that if they will stay in Judah, they shall be safe; but if they go down into Egypt, they shall perish.

42:1. Then all the captains of the warriors, and Johanan the son of Caree, and Jezonias, the son of Osaias, and the rest of the people from the least to the greatest came near:

42:2. They said to Jeremiah the prophet: Let our supplication fall before you: and pray you for us to the Lord your God for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes do behold us.

42:3. Let the Lord your God shew us the way by which we may walk, and the thing that we must do.

42:4. Jeremiah the prophet said to them: I have heard you: behold I will pray to the Lord your God according to your words: and whatsoever thing he shall answer me, I will declare it to you: and I will hide nothing from you.

42:5. They said to Jeremiah: The Lord be witness between us of truth and faithfulness, if we do not according to every thing for which the Lord your God shall send you to us.

42:6. Whether it be good or evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send you: that it may be well with us when we shall hearken to the voice of the Lord our God.

Good or evil. . .That is, agreeable or disagreeable.

42:7. Now after ten days, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

42:8. He called Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the fighting men that were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest.

42:9. He said to them: Thus says the Lord the God of Israel, to whom you sent me, to present your supplications before him:

42:10. If you will be quiet and remain in this land, I will build you up, and not pull you down: I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for now I am appeased for the evil that I have done to you.

I am appeased for the evil that I have done to you. . .That is, I am appeased, as I have sufficiently punished you, and now I am reconciled with you.

42:11. Fear not because of the king of Babylon, of whom you are greatly afraid: fear him not, says the Lord: for I am with you, to save you, and to deliver you from his hand.

42:12. I will shew mercies to you, and will take pity on you, and will cause you to dwell in your own land.

42:13. But if you say: We will not dwell in this land, neither will we hearken to the voice of the Lord our God,

42:14. Saying: No, but we will go into the land of Egypt: where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor suffer hunger: and there we will dwell.

42:15. For this now hear the word of the Lord, ye remnant of Judah: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you set your faces to go into Egypt, and enter in to dwell there:



42:16. The sword which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt: and the famine, whereof you are afraid, shall cleave to you in Egypt, and there you shall die.

42:17. All the men that set their faces to go into Egypt, to dwell there, shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence: none of them shall remain, nor escape from the face of the evil that I will bring upon them.

42:18. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As my anger and my indignation has been kindled against the inhabitants of Jerusalem: so shall my indignation be kindled against you, when you shall enter into Egypt, and you shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach: and you shall see this place no more.

42:19. This is the word of the Lord concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah: Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have adjured you this day.

42:20. For you have deceived your own souls: for you sent me to the Lord our God, saying: Pray for us to the Lord our God, and according to all that the Lord our God shall say to you, so declare unto us, and we will do it.

42:21. Now I have declared it to you this day, and you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, with regard to all the things for which he has sent me to you.

42:22. Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence in the place to which you desire to go to dwell there.

Jeremiah Chapter 43
'The Jews, contrary to the orders of God by the prophet, go into Egypt, carrying Jeremiah with them. He foretells the devastation of that land by the king of Babylon.'

43:1. It came to pass, that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking to the people all the words of the Lord their God, for which the Lord their God had sent him to them, all these words:



43:2. Azarias the son of Osaias, and Johanan the son of Caree, and all the proud men, made answer, saying to Jeremiah: You tellest a lie: the Lord our God has not sent you, saying: Go not into Egypt, to dwell there.

43:3. But Baruch the son of Nerias setteth you on against us, to deliver us into the hands of the Chaldeans, to kill us, and to cause us to be carried away captives to Babylon.

43:4. So Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the soldiers, and all the people, obeyed not the voice of the Lord, to remain in the land of Judah.

43:5. But Johanan the son of Caree, and all the captains of the soldiers took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned out of all nations, to which they had before been scattered, to dwell in the land of Judah:

43:6. Men, and women, and children, and the king's daughters, and every soul, which Nabuzardan the general had left with Godolias the son of Ahicam the son of Saphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Nerias.

43:7. They went into the land of Egypt, for they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: and they came as far as Taphnis.

43:8. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Taphnis, saying:



43:9. Take great stones in your hand, and you shall hide them in the vault that is under the brick wall at the gate of Pharaoh's house in Taphnis: in the sight of the men of Judah.

43:10. You shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will send, and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon my servant: and I will set his throne over these stones which I have hid, and he shall set his throne over them.

43:11. He shall come and strike the land of Egypt: such as are for death, to death: and such as are for captivity, to captivity: and such as are for the sword, to the sword.

43:12. He shall kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them, and he shall carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment: and he shall go forth from thence in peace.

43:13. He shall break the statues of the house of the sun, that are in the land of Egypt; and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire.

Jeremiah Chapter 44
The prophet's admonition to the Jews in Egypt against idolatry is not regarded: he denounces to them their destruction.

44:1. The word that came to Jeremiah, concerning all the Jews that dwelt in the land of Egypt, dwelling in Magdal, and in Taphnis, and in Memphis, and in the land of Phatures, saying:

44:2. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: You have seen all this evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah: and behold they are desolate this day, and there is not an inhabitant in them:

44:3. Because of the wickedness which they have committed, to provoke me to wrath, and to go and offer sacrifice, and worship other gods, which neither they, nor you, nor your fathers knew.



44:4. I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early, and sending, and saying: Do not commit this abominable thing, which I hate.

44:5. But they heard not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their evil ways, and not to sacrifice to strange gods.

44:6. Wherefore my indignation and my fury was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: and they are turned to desolation and waste, as at this day.

44:7. Now thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Why do you commit this great evil against your own souls, that there should die of you man and woman, child and babe out of the midst of Judah, and no remnant should be left you:

44:8. In that you provoke me to wrath with the works of your hands, by sacrificing to other gods in the land of Egypt, into which you are come to dwell there: and that you should perish, and be a curse, and a reproach to all the nations of the earth?

44:9. Have you forgotten the evils of your fathers, and the evils of the kings of Judah, and the evils of their wives, and your evils, and the evils of your wives, that they have done in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem?

44:10. They are not cleansed even to this day: neither have they feared, nor walked in the law of the Lord, nor in my commandments, which I set before you and your fathers.

44:11. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will set my face upon you for evil: and I will destroy all Judah.

44:12. I will take the remnant of Judah that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt, and to dwell there; and they shall be all consumed in the land of Egypt: they shall fall by the sword, and by the famine: and they shall be consumed from the least even to the greatest, by the sword, and by the famine shall they die: and they shall be for an execration, and for a wonder, and for a curse, and for a reproach.



44:13. I will visit them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have visited Jerusalem by the sword, and by famine and by pestilence.

44:14. There shall be none that shall escape, and remain of the remnant of the Jews that are gone to sojourn in the land of Egypt: and that shall return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there: there shall none return but they that shall flee.

44:15. Then all the men that knew that their wives sacrificed to other gods: and all the women of whom there stood by a great multitude, and all the people of them that dwelt in the land of Egypt in Phatures, answered Jeremiah, saying:

44:16. As for the word which you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken to you:

44:17. But we will certainly do every word that shall proceed out of our own mouth, to sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we and our fathers have done, our kings, and our princes in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: and we were filled with bread, and it was well with us, and we saw no evil.

The queen of heaven. . .The moon, which they worshipped under this name.

44:18. But since we left off to offer sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and to pour out frank offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, and by famine.

44:19. If we offer sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and pour out drink offerings to her: did we make cakes to worship her, to pour out drink offerings to her, without our husbands?

44:20. Jeremiah spoke to all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer, saying:

44:21. Was it not the sacrifice that you offered in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, which the Lord has remembered, and has it not entered into his heart?

44:22. So that the Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed: therefore your land is become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day.

44:23. Because you have sacrificed to idols, and have sinned against the Lord: and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have not walked in his law, and in his commandments, and in his testimonies: therefore are these evils come upon you, as at this day.

44:24. Jeremiah said to all the people and to all the women: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judah, you that dwell in the land of Egypt:

44:25. Thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, saying: You and your wives have spoken with your mouth, and fulfilled with your hands, saying: Let us perform our vows which we have made, to offer sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her: you have fulfilled your vows, and have performed them indeed.

44:26. Therefore hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judah, you that dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold I have sworn by my great name, says the Lord: that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah, in the land of Egypt, saying: The Lord God lives.

44:27. Behold I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt, shall be consumed, by the sword, and by famine, till there be an end of them.



44:28. A few men that shall flee from the sword, shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah: and all the remnant of Judah that are gone into the land of Egypt to dwell there, shall know whose word shall stand, mine, or theirs.

44:29. This shall be a sign to you, says the Lord, that I will punish you in this place: that you may know that my words shall be accomplished indeed against you for evil.

44:30. Thus says the Lord: Behold I will deliver Pharaoh Nechao king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life: as I delivered Zedekiah king of Judah into the land of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon his enemy, and that sought his life.

Jeremiah Chapter 45
The prophet comforts Baruch in his affliction.

45:1. The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Nerias, when he had written these words in a book, out of the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying:

45:2. Thus says the Lord the God of Israel to you, Baruch:

45:3. You have said: Woe is me, wretch that I am, for the Lord has added sorrow to my sorrow: I am wearied with my groans, and I find no rest.

45:4. Thus says the Lord: Thus shall you say to him: Behold, them whom I have built, I do destroy: and them whom I have planted, I do pluck up, and all this land.

'''45:5. Do you seek great things for yourself? Seek not: for behold I will bring evil upon all flesh, says the Lord! but I will give you your life, and save you in all places whithersoever you shall go.'''

Jeremiah Chapter 46
'A prophecy against Egypt. The Jews shall return from captivity.'

46:1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles,

46:2. Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh Nechao king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Charcamis, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon defeated, in the fourth year of Joakim the son of Josiah king of Judah.

46:3. Prepare ye the shield and buckler, and go forth to battle.



46:4. Harness the horses, and get up, ye horsemen: stand forth with helmets, furbish the spears, put on coats of mail.

'''46:5. What then? I have seen them dismayed, and turning their backs, their valiant ones slain: they fled apace, and they looked not back: terror was round about, says the Lord.'''

46:6. Let not the swift flee away, nor the strong think to escape: they are overthrown, and fallen down, towards the north by the river Euphrates.

46:7. Who is this that comes up as a flood: and his streams swell like those of rivers?



46:8. Egypt riseth up like a flood, and the waves thereof shall be moved as rivers, and he shall say: I will go up and will cover the earth: I will destroy the city, and its inhabitants.

46:9. Get ye up on horses, and glory in chariots, and let the valiant men come forth, the Ethiopians, and the Libyans that hold the shield, and the Lydians that take, and shoot arrows.

46:10. For this is the day of the Lord the God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may revenge himself of his enemies: the sword shall devour, and shall be filled, and shall be drunk with their blood: for there is a sacrifice of the Lord God of hosts in the north country, by the river Euphrates.

46:11. Go up into Galaad, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt: in vain do you multiply medicines, there shall be no cure for you.

46:12. The nations have heard of your disgrace, and your howling has filled the land: for the strong has stumbled against the strong, and both are fallen together.

46:13. The word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt:



46:14. Declare ye to Egypt, and publish it in Magdal, and let it be known in Memphis, and in Taphnis: say ye: Stand up, and prepare yourself: for the sword shall devour all round about you.

'''46:15. Why are your valiant men come to nothing? they stood not: because the Lord has overthrown them.'''

46:16. He has multiplied them that fall, and one has fallen upon another, and they shall say: Arise, and let us return to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the sword of the dove.

The dove. . .See the annotation on chap. 25., ver. 38.

46:17. Call ye the name of Pharaoh king of Egypt, a tumult time has brought.



46:18. As I live, says the King, (whose name is the Lord of hosts,) as Thabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall he come.

46:19. Furnish yourself to go into captivity, you daughter inhabitant of Egypt: for Memphis shall be made desolate, and shall be forsaken and uninhabited.

46:20. Egypt is like a fair and beautiful heifer: there shall come from the north one that shall goad her.

46:21. Her hirelings also that lived in the midst of her, like fatted calves are turned back, and are fled away together, and they could not stand, for the day of their slaughter is come upon them, the time of their visitation.

46:22. Her voice shall sound like brass, for they shall hasten with an army, and with axes they shall come against her, as hewers of wood.



46:23. They have cut down her forest, says the Lord, which cannot be counted: they are multiplied above locusts, and are without number.

46:24. The daughter of Egypt is confounded, and delivered into the hand of the people of the north.

46:25. The Lord of hosts the God of Israel has said: Behold I will visit upon the tumult of Alexandria, and upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt, and upon her gods, and upon her kings, and upon Pharaoh, and upon them that trust in him.

Visit upon. . .That is, punish.--Ibid. Alexandria. . .In the Hebrew, No, which was the ancient name of the city, to which Alexander gave afterwards the name of Alexandria.

46:26. I will deliver them into the hand of them that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterwards it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, says the Lord.



46:27. You my servant Jacob, fear not and be not you dismayed, O Israel: for behold I will save you from afar off, and your seed out of the land of your captivity: and Jacob shall return and be at rest, and prosper: and there shall be none to terrify him.

46:28. You, my servant Jacob, fear not, says the Lord: because I am with you, for I will consume all the nations to which I have cast you out: but you I will not consume, but I will correct you in judgment, neither will I spare you as if you wert innocent.

Jeremiah Chapter 47
A prophecy of the desolation of the Philistines, of Tyre, Sidon, Gaza, and Ascalon.



47:1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the people of Palestine, before Pharaoh took Gaza.

47:2. Thus says the Lord: Behold there come up waters out of the north, and they shall be as an overflowing torrent, and they shall cover the land, and all that is therein, the city and the inhabitants thereof: then the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl,

'''47:3. At the noise of the marching of arms, and of his soldiers, at the rushing of his chariots, and the multitude of his wheels. The fathers have not looked back to the children, for feebleness of hands,'''

'''47:4. Because of the coming of the day, in which all the Philistines shall be laid waste, and Tyre and Sidon shall be destroyed, with all the rest of their helpers. For the Lord has wasted the Philistines, the remnant of the isle of Cappadocia.'''

47:5. Baldness is come upon Gaza: Ascalon has held her peace with the remnant of their valley: how long shall you cut yourself?

'''47:6. O you sword of the Lord, how long will you not be quiet? Go into your scabbard, rest, and be still.'''



47:7. How shall it be quiet, when the Lord has given it a charge against Ascalon, and against the countries thereof by the sea side, and there has made an appointment for it?

Jeremiah Chapter 48
A prophecy of the desolation of Moab for their pride: but their captivity shall at last be released.

48:1. Against Moab thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Woe to Nabo, for it is laid waste, and confounded: Cariathaim is taken: the strong city is confounded and has trembled.

'''48:2. There is no more rejoicing in Moab over Hesebon: they have devised evil. Come, and let us cut it off from being a nation. Therefore shall you in silence hold your peace, and the sword shall follow you.'''

48:3. A voice of crying from Oronaim: waste, and great destruction.

48:4. Moab is destroyed: proclaim a cry for her little ones.

48:5. For by the ascent of Luith shall the mourner go up with weeping: for in the descent of Oronaim the enemies have heard a howling of destruction.

48:6. Flee, save your lives: and be as heath in the wilderness.



48:7. For because you have trusted in your bulwarks, and in your treasures, you also shall be taken: and Chamos shall go into captivity, his priests, and his princes together.

Chamos. . .The idol of the Moabites.

48:8. The spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape: and the valleys shall perish, and the plains shall be destroyed, for the Lord has spoken:

48:9. Give a flower to Moab, for in its flower it shall go out: and the cities thereof shall be desolate, and uninhabited.

48:10. Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully: and cursed be he that withholdeth his sword from blood.

Deceitfully. . .In the Greek, negligently. The work of God here spoken of, is the punishment of the Moabites.

48:11. Moab has been fruitful from his youth, and has rested upon his lees: and has not been poured out from vessel to vessel, nor has gone into captivity: therefore his taste has remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

Moab has been fruitful. . .That is, rich and flourishing. Has rested upon his lees. . .That is, remained in its bad morals; as wine not decanted has its lees mixed and remains muddy.

48:12. Therefore behold the days come, says the Lord, and I will send him men that shall order and overturn his bottles, and they shall cast him down, and shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles one against another.

48:13. Moab shall be ashamed of Chamos, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, in which they trusted.

Of Bethel. . .That is, of their golden calf which they worshipped in Bethel.

48:14. How do you say: We are valiant and stout men in battle?

48:15. Moab is laid waste, and they have cast down her cities: and her choice young men are gone down to the slaughter: says the king, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

48:16. The destruction of Moab is near to come: the calamity thereof shall come on exceeding swiftly.

48:17. Comfort him, all you that are round about him, and all you that know his name, say: How is the strong staff broken, the beautiful rod?



48:18. Come down from your glory, and sit in thirst, O dwelling of the daughter of Dibon: because the spoiler of Moab is come up to you, he has destroyed your bulwarks.

48:19. Stand in the way, and look out, O habitation of Aroer: inquire of him that fleeth: and say to him that has escaped: What is done?

48:20. Moab is confounded, because he is overthrown: howl ye, and cry, tell ye it in Arnon, that Moab is wasted.

48:21. Judgment is come upon the plain country: upon Helon, and upon Jasa, and upon Mephaath.

48:22. Upon Dibon, and upon Nabo, and upon the house of Deblathaim,

48:23. and upon Cariathaim, and upon Bethgamul, and upon Bethmaon,

48:24. and upon Carioth, and upon Bosra: and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near.

48:25. The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, says the Lord.

The horn of Moab is cut off. . .That is, the strength of Moab is cut off. A metaphor drawn from animals whose strength is in their horns.

48:26. Make him drunk, because he lifted up himself against the Lord: and Moab shall dash his hand in his own vomit, and he also shall be in derision.

48:27. For Israel has been a derision unto them: as though you hadst found him amongst thieves: for your words therefore, which you have spoken against him, you shall be led away captive.



48:28. Leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, you that dwell in Moab: and be ye like the dove that maketh her nest in the mouth of the hole in the highest place.

48:29. We have heard the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud: his haughtiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the loftiness of his heart.

48:30. I know, says the Lord, his boasting, and that the strength thereof is not according to it, neither has it endeavoured to do according as it was able.

48:31. Therefore will I lament for Moab, and I will cry out to all Moab, for the men of the brick wall that mourn.

48:32. O vineyard of Sabama, I will weep for you, with the mourning of Jazer: your branches are gone over the sea, they are come even to the sea of Jazer: the robber has rushed in upon your harvest and your vintage.



48:33. Joy and gladness is taken away from Carmel, and from the land of Moab, and I have taken away the wine out of the presses: the treader of the grapes shall not sing the accustomed cheerful tune.

48:34. From the cry of Hesebon even to Eleale, and to Jasa, they have uttered their voice: from Segor to Oronaim, as a heifer of three years old: the waters also of Nemrim shall be very bad.

48:35. I will take away from Moab, says the Lord, him that offereth in the high places, and that sacrificeth to his gods.

48:36. Therefore my heart shall sound for Moab like pipes and my heart shall sound like pipes for the men of the brick wall: because he has done more than he could, therefore they have perished.

48:37. For every head shall be bald, and every beard shall be shaven: all hands shall be tied together, and upon every back there shall be haircloth.

48:38. Upon all the housetops of Moab, and in the streets thereof general mourning: because I have broken Moab as an useless vessel, says the Lord.

'''48:39. How is it overthrown, and they have howled! How has Moab bowed down the neck, and is confounded! And Moab shall be a derision, and an example to all round about him.'''



48:40. Thus says the Lord: Behold he shall fly as an eagle, and shall stretch forth his wings to Moab.

48:41. Carioth is taken, and the strongholds are won: and the heart of the valiant men of Moab in that day shall be as the heart of a woman in labor.

48:42. Moab shall cease to be a people: because he has gloried against the Lord.

48:43. Fear, and the pit, and the snare come upon you, O inhabitant of Moab, says the Lord.

Fear. . .That is, the sword of the enemy. The pit. . .That is, unforeseen calamities. The snare. . .That is, the ambushes laid by the enemy.

48:44. He that shall flee from the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall get up out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for I will bring upon Moab the year of their visitation, says the Lord.



48:45. They that fled from the snare stood in the shadow of Hesebon: but there came a fire out of Hesebon, and a flame out of the midst of Seon, and it shall devour part of Moab, and the crown of the head of the children of tumult.

48:46. Woe to you, Moab, you have persisted, O people of Chamos: for your sons, and your daughters are taken captives.

'''48:47. I will bring back the captivity of Moab in the last days, says the Lord. Hitherto the judgments of Moab.'''

Jeremiah Chapter 49
The like desolation of Ammon, of Idumea, of the Syrians, of the Agarenes, and of the Elamites.

'''49:1. Against the children of Ammon. Thus says the Lord: Hath Israel no sons? or has he no heir? Why then has Melchom inherited Gad: and his people dwelt in his cities?'''

Melchom. . .The idol of the Ammonites.

49:2. Therefore behold the days come, says the Lord, and I will cause the noise of war to be heard in Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and it shall be destroyed into a heap, and her daughters shall be burnt with fire, and Israel shall possess them that have possessed him, says the Lord.

'''49:3. Howl, O Hesebon, for Hai is wasted. Cry, ye daughters of Rabbath, gird yourselves with haircloth: mourn and go about by the hedges: for Melchom shall be carried into captivity, his priests, and his princes together.'''



'''49:4. Why gloriest you in the valleys? your valley has flowed away, O delicate daughter, that have trusted in your treasures, and have said: Who shall come to me?'''

49:5. Behold I will bring a fear upon you, says the Lord God of hosts, from all that are round about you: and you shall be scattered every one out of one another's sight, neither shall there be any to gather together them that flee.

49:6. Afterwards I will cause the captives of the children of Ammon to return, says the Lord.

'''49:7. Against Edom. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Is wisdom no more in Theman? counsel is perished from her children: their wisdom is become unprofitable.'''

49:8. Flee and turn your backs, go down into the deep hole, ye inhabitants of Dedan: for I have brought the destruction of Esau upon him, the time of his visitation.



'''49:9. If grapegatherers had come to you, would they not have left a bunch? if thieves in the night, they would have taken what was enough for them.'''

49:10. But I have made Esau bare, I have revealed his secrets, and he cannot be hid: his seed is laid waste, and his brethren, and his neighbours, and he shall not be.

49:11. Leave your fatherless children: I will make them live: and your widows shall hope in me.

'''49:12. For thus says the Lord: Behold they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup, shall certainly drink: and shall you come off as innocent? you shall not come off as innocent, but drinking you shall drink.'''



49:13. For I have sworn by myself, says the Lord, that Bosra shall become a desolation, and a reproach, and a desert, and a curse: and all her cities shall be everlasting wastes.

49:14. I have heard a rumour from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent to the nations: Gather yourselves together, and come against her, and let us rise up to battle.

49:15. For behold I have made you a little one among the nations, despicable among men.



49:16. Your arrogancy has deceived you, and the pride of your heart: O you that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, and endeavourest to lay hold on the height of the hill: but though you shouldst make your nest as high as an eagle, I will bring you down from thence, says the Lord.

49:17. Edom shall be desolate: every one that shall pass by it, shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all its plagues.

49:18. As Sodom was overthrown and Gomorrha, and the neighbours thereof, says the Lord: there shall not a man dwell there, and there shall no son of man inhabit it.



'''49:19. Behold one shall come up as a lion from the swelling of the Jordan, against the strong and beautiful: for I will make him run suddenly upon her: and who shall be the chosen one whom I may appoint over her? for who is like to me? and who shall abide me? and who is that shepherd that can withstand my countenance?'''

49:20. Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord, which he has taken concerning Edom: and his thoughts which he has thought concerning the inhabitants of Theman: surely the little ones of the flock shall cast them down, of a truth they shall destroy them with their habitation.

49:21. The earth is moved at the noise of their fall: the cry of their voice is heard in the Red Sea.



49:22. Behold he shall come up as an eagle, and fly: and he shall spread his wings over Bosra: and in that day the heart of the valiant ones of Edom shall be as the heart of a woman in labor.

'''49:23. Against Damascus. Emath is confounded and Arphad: for they have heard very bad tidings, they are troubled as in the sea: through care they could not rest.'''

49:24. Damascus is undone, she is put to flight, trembling has seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her as a woman in labor.

49:25. How have they forsaken the city of renown, the city of joy!

49:26. Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets: and all the men of war shall be silent in that day, says the Lord of hosts.

49:27. I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the strong holds of Benadad.

'''49:28. Against Cedar and against the kingdoms of Asor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon destroyed. Thus says the Lord: Arise, and go ye up to Cedar, and waste the children of the east.'''

Cedar and Asor. . .Were parts of Arabia; which with Moab, Ammon, Edom, etc., were all brought under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar.



49:29. They shall take their tents, and their flocks: and shall carry off for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels: and they shall call fear upon them round about.

49:30. Flee ye, get away speedily, sit in deep holes, you that inhabit Asor, says the Lord: for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has taken counsel against you, and has conceived designs against you.

49:31. Arise, and go up to a nation that is at ease, and that dwelleth securely, says the Lord: they have neither gates, nor bars: they dwell alone.

49:32. Their camels shall be for a spoil and the multitude of their cattle for a booty, and I will scatter into every wind them that have their hair cut round, and I will bring destruction upon them from all their confines, says the Lord.

49:33. Asor shall be a habitation for dragons, desolate for ever: no man shall abide there, nor son of man inhabit it.

49:34. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying:

Elam. . .A part of Persia.

49:35. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold I will break the bow of Elam, and their chief strength.



49:36. I will bring upon Elam the four winds from the four quarters of heaven: and I will scatter them into all these winds: and there shall be no nation, to which the fugitives of Elam shall not come.

49:37. I will cause Elam to be afraid before their enemies, and in the sight of them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, my fierce wrath, says the Lord: and I will send the sword after them, till I consume them.

49:38. I will set my throne in Elam, and destroy kings and princes from thence, says the Lord.

49:39. But in the latter days I will cause the captives of Elam, to return, says the Lord.

Jeremiah Chapter 50
Babylon, which has afflicted the Israelites, after their restoration, shall be utterly destroyed.

50:1. The word that the Lord has spoken against Babylon, and against the land of the Chaldeans in the hand of Jeremiah the prophet.

50:2. Declare ye among the nations, and publish it, lift up a standard: proclaim, and conceal it not: say: Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is overthrown, their graven things are confounded, their idols are overthrown.

Bel, etc. . .Bel and Merodach were worshipped for gods by the men of Babylon.

50:3. For a nation is come up against her out of the north, which shall make her land desolate: and there shall be none to dwell therein, from man even to beast: yea they are removed, and gone away.

A nation, etc. . .Viz., the Medes.

50:4. In those days, and at that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together: going and weeping they shall make haste, and shall seek the Lord their God.

'''50:5. They shall ask the way to Sion, their faces are hitherward. They shall come, and shall be joined to the Lord by an everlasting covenant, which shall never be forgotten.'''



50:6. My people have been a lost flock, their shepherds have caused them to go astray, and have made them wander in the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.

50:7. All that found them, have devoured them: and their enemies said: We have not sinned in so doing: because they have sinned against the Lord the beauty of justice, and against the Lord the hope of their fathers.

50:8. Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans: and be ye as kids at the head of the flock.

50:9. For behold I raise up, and will bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north: and they shall be prepared against her, and from thence she shall be taken: their arrows, like those of a mighty man, a destroyer, shall not return in vain.

50:10. Chaldea shall be made a prey: all that waste her shall be filled, says the Lord.



50:11. Because you rejoice, and speak great things, pillaging my inheritance: because you are spread abroad as calves upon the grass, and have bellowed as bulls.

50:12. Your mother is confounded exceedingly, and she that bore you is made even with the dust: behold she shall be the last among the nations, a wilderness unpassable, and dry.

50:13. Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited, but shall be wholly desolate: every one that shall pass by Babylon, shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all her plagues.



50:14. Prepare yourselves against Babylon round about, all you that bend the bow: fight against her, spare not arrows: because she has sinned against the Lord.

'''50:15. Shout against her, she has every where given her hand, her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down, for it is the vengeance of the Lord. Take vengeance upon her: as she has done, so do to her.'''

50:16. Destroy the sower out of Babylon, and him that holdeth the sickle in the time of harvest: for fear of the sword of the dove every man shall return to his people, and every one shall flee to his own land.

The dove. . .Or the destroyer; for the Hebrew word signifies either the one or the other.



50:17. Israel is a scattered flock, the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria devoured him: and last this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.

50:18. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Behold I will visit the king of Babylon and his land, as I have visited the king of Assyria.

50:19. I will bring Israel again to his habitation: and he shall feed on Carmel, and Bason, and his soul shall be satisfied in mount Ephraim, and Galaad.

50:20. In those days, and at that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none: and the sin of Judah, and there shall none be found: for I will be merciful to them, whom I shall leave.

50:21. Go up against the land of the rulers, and punish the inhabitants thereof, waste, and destroy all behind them, says the Lord: and do according to all that I have commanded you.

50:22. A noise of war in the land, and a great destruction.



'''50:23. How is the hammer of the whole earth broken, and destroyed! how is Babylon turned into a desert among the nations!'''

50:24. I have caused you to fall into a snare, and you are taken, O Babylon, and you were not aware of it: you are found and caught, because you have provoked the Lord.

50:25. The Lord has opened his armoury, and has brought forth the weapons of his wrath: for the Lord the God of hosts has a work to be done in the land of the Chaldeans.

50:26. Come ye against her from the uttermost borders: open that they may go forth that shall tread her down: take the stones out of the way, and make heaps, and destroy her: and let nothing of her be left.

50:27. Destroy all her valiant men, let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them, for their day is come, the time of their visitation.

50:28. The voice of them that flee, and of them that have escaped out of the land of Babylon: to declare in Sion the revenge of the Lord our God, the revenge of his temple.

50:29. Declare to many against Babylon, to all that bend the bow: stand together against her round about, and let none escape; pay her according to her work: according to all that she has done, do ye to her: for she has lifted up herself against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel.

50:30. Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets: and all her men of war shall hold their peace in that day, says the Lord.

50:31. Behold I come against you, O proud one, says the Lord the God of hosts: for your day is come, the time of your visitation.

50:32. The proud one shall fall, he shall fall down, and there shall be none to lift him up: and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all round about him.

50:33. Thus says the Lord of hosts: The children of Israel, and the children of Judah are oppressed together: all that have taken them captives, hold them fast, they will not let them go.

50:34. Their redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is his name: he will defend their cause in judgment, to terrify the land, and to disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.

50:35. A sword is upon the Chaldeans, says the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men.

50:36. A sword upon her diviners, and they shall be foolish: a sword upon her valiant ones, and they shall be dismayed.



50:37. A sword upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the people that are in the midst of her: and they shall become as women: a sword upon her treasures, and they shall be made a spoil.

50:38. A drought upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: because it is a land of idols, and they glory in monstrous things.

50:39. Therefore shall dragons dwell there with the fig fauns: and ostriches shall dwell therein, and it shall be no more inhabited for ever, neither shall it be built up from generation to generation.

Fig fauns. . .Monsters of the desert, or demons in monstrous shapes: such as the ancients called fauns and satyrs; and as they imagined them to live upon wild figs, they called them fauni ficarii or fig fauns.

50:40. As the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha, and their neighbour cities, says the Lord: no man shall dwell there, neither shall the son of man inhabit it.

50:41. Behold a people comes from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall rise from the ends of the earth.



50:42. They shall take the bow and the shield: they are cruel and unmerciful: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses: like a man prepared for battle against you, O daughter of Babylon.

50:43. The king of Babylon has heard the report of them, and his hands are grown feeble: anguish has taken hold of him, pangs as a woman in labor.

'''50:44. Behold he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of the Jordan to the strong and beautiful: for I will make him run suddenly upon her: and who shall be the chosen one whom I may appoint over her? for who is like to me? and who shall bear up against me? and who is that shepherd that can withstand my countenance?'''

50:45. Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord, which he has taken against Babylon: and his thoughts which he has thought against the land of the Chaldeans: surely the little ones of the flocks shall pull them down, of a truth their habitation shall be destroyed with them.

50:46. At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and the cry is heard amongst the nations.

Jeremiah Chapter 51
The miseries that shall fall upon Babylon from the Medes: the destruction of her idols.

51:1. Thus says the Lord: Behold I will raise up as it were a pestilential wind against Babylon and against the inhabitants thereof, who have lifted up their heart against me.

51:2. I will send to Babylon fanners, and they shall fan her, and shall destroy her land: for they are come upon her on every side in the day of her affliction.

51:3. Let not him that bendeth, bend his bow, and let not him go up that is armed with a coat of mail: spare not her young men, destroy all her army.

51:4. The slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and the wounded in the regions thereof.

51:5. For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God the Lord of hosts: but their land has been filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.

51:6. Flee ye from the midst of Babylon, and let every one save his own life: be not silent upon her iniquity: for it is the time of revenge from the Lord, he will render unto her what she has deserved.

51:7. Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, that made all the earth drunk: the nations have drunk of her wine, and therefore they have staggered.

51:8. Babylon is suddenly fallen, and destroyed: howl for her, take balm for her pain, if so she may be healed.



51:9. We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed: let us forsake her, and let us go every man to his own land: because her judgment has reached even to the heavens, and is lifted up to the clouds.

51:10. The Lord has brought forth our justices: Come, and let us declare in Sion the work of the Lord our God.

51:11. Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers, the Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: and his mind is against Babylon to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple.

51:12. Upon the walls of Babylon set up the standard, strengthen the watch: set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the Lord has both purposed, and done all that he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.

51:13. O you that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures, your end is come for your entire destruction.

51:14. The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself, saying: I will fill you with men as with locusts, and they shall lift up a joyful shout against you.

51:15. He that made the earth by his power, that has prepared the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.



51:16. When he uttereth his voice the waters are multiplied in heaven: he lifteth up the clouds from the ends of the earth, he has turned lightning into rain: and has brought forth the wind out of his treasures.

51:17. Every man is become foolish by his knowledge: every founder is confounded by his idol, for what he has cast is a lie, and there is no breath in them.

51:18. They are vain works, and worthy to be laughed at, in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

51:19. The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he that made all things he it is, and Israel is the sceptre of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name.



51:20. You dashest together for me the weapons of war, and with you I will dash nations together, and with you I will destroy kingdoms:

51:21. and with you I will break in pieces the horse, and his rider, and with you I will break in pieces the chariot, and him that getteth up into it:

51:22. and with you I will break in pieces man and woman, and with you I will break in pieces the old man and the child, and with you I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin:

51:23. and with you I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock, and with you I will break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen, and with you I will break in pieces captains and rulers.

51:24. I will render to Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil, that they have done in Sion, before your eyes, says the Lord.



51:25. Behold I come against you, you destroying mountain, says the Lord, which corruptest the whole earth: and I will stretch out my hand upon you, and will roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain.

51:26. They shall not take of you a stone for the corner, nor a stone for foundations, but you shall be destroyed for ever, says the Lord.

51:27. Set ye up a standard in the land: sound with the trumpet among the nations: prepare the nations against her: call together against her the kings of Ararat, Menni, and Ascenez: number Taphsar against her, bring the horse as the stinging locust.

51:28. Prepare the nations against her, the kings of Media, their captains, and all their rulers, and all the land of their dominion.



51:29. The land shall be in a commotion, and shall be troubled: for the design of the Lord against Babylon shall awake, to make the land of Babylon desert and uninhabitable.

51:30. The valiant men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they have dwelt in holds: their strength has failed, and they are become as women: her dwelling places are burnt, her bars are broken.

51:31. One running post shall meet another, and messenger shall meet messenger: to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken from one end to the other:

51:32. and that the fords are taken, and the marshes are burnt with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

51:33. For thus says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a thrashingfloor, this is the time of her thrashing: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.

51:34. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has eaten me up, he has devoured me: he has made me as an empty vessel: he has swallowed me up like a dragon, he has filled his belly with my delicate meats, and he has cast me out.

51:35. The wrong done to me, and my flesh be upon Babylon, says the habitation of Sion: and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, says Jerusalem.



51:36. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold I will judge your cause, and will take vengeance for you, and I will make her sea desolate, I and will dry up her spring.

51:37. Babylon shall be reduced to heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, because there is no inhabitant.

51:38. They shall roar together like lions, they shall shake their manes like young lions.

51:39. In their heat I will set them drink: and I will make them drunk, that they may slumber, and sleep an everlasting sleep, and awake no more, says the Lord.



51:40. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with kids.

'''51:41. How is Sesach taken, and the renowned one of all the earth surprised? How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations?'''

51:42. The sea is come up over Babylon : she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

51:43. Her cities are become an astonishment, a land uninhabited and desolate, a land wherein none can dwell, nor son of man pass through it.



51:44. I will visit against Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he had swallowed down: and the nations shall no more flow together to him, for the wall also of Babylon shall fall.

51:45. Go out of the midst of her, my people: that every man may save his life from the fierce wrath of the Lord.

51:46. Lest your hearts faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land: and a rumour shall come in one year, and after this year another rumour: and iniquity in the land, and ruler upon ruler.

51:47. Therefore behold the days come, and I will visit the idols of Babylon: and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

51:48. The heavens and the earth, and all things that are in them shall give praise for Babylon: for spoilers shall come to her from the north, says the Lord.

51:49. As Babylon caused that there should fall slain in Israel: so of Babylon there shall fall slain in all the earth.

51:50. You that have escaped the sword, come away, stand not still: remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

51:51. We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: shame has covered our faces: because strangers are come upon the sanctuaries of the house of the Lord.

51:52. Therefore behold the days come, says the Lord, and I will visit her graven things, and in all her land the wounded shall groan:

51:53. If Babylon should mount up to heaven, and establish her strength on high: from me there should come spoilers upon her, says the Lord.

51:54. The noise of a cry from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans:



51:55. Because the Lord has laid Babylon waste, and destroyed out of her the great voice: and their wave shall roar like many waters: their voice has made a noise:

51:56. Because the spoiler is come upon her, that is, upon Babylon, and her valiant men are taken, and their bow is weakened, because the Lord, who is a strong revenger, will surely repay.

51:57. I will make her princes drunk, and her wise men, and her captains, and her rulers, and her valiant men: and they shall sleep an everlasting sleep, and shall awake no more, says the king whose name is Lord of hosts.



51:58. Thus says the Lord of hosts: That broad wall of Babylon shall be utterly broken down, and her high gates shall be burnt with fire, and the labors of the people shall come to nothing, and of the nations shall go to the fire, and shall perish.

51:59. The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Saraias the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, when he went with king Zedekiah to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign: now Saraias was chief over the prophecy.

51:60. Jeremiah wrote in one book all the evil that was to come upon Babylon: all these words that are written against Babylon.

51:61. Jeremiah said to Saraias: When you shall come into Babylon, and shall see, and shall read all these words,

51:62. You shall say: O Lord, you have spoken against this place to destroy it: so that there should be neither man nor beast to dwell therein, and that it should be desolate for ever.

51:63. When you shall have made an end of reading this book, you shall tie a stone to it, and shall throw it into the midst of the Euphrates:

'''51:64. You shall say: Thus shall Babylon sink, and she shall not rise up from the affliction that I will bring upon her, and she shall be utterly destroyed. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.'''

Jeremiah Chapter 52
'A recapitulation of the reign of Zedekiah, and the destruction of Jerusalem. The number of the captives.'



52:1. Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and the name of his mother was Amital, the daughter of Jeremiah of Lobna.

52:2. He did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

Jehoiakim is the current spelling for what had been Joakim.

52:3. For the wrath of the Lord was against Jerusalem, and against Judah, till he cast them out from his presence: and Zedekiah revolted from the king of Babylon.

52:4. It came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and they besieged it, and built forts against it round about.

52:5. The city was besieged until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.

52:6. In the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a famine overpowered the city: and there was no food for the people of the land.



52:7. The city was broken up, and the men of war fled, and went out of the city in the night by the way of the gate that is between the two walls, and leads to the king's garden, (the Chaldeans besieging the city round about,) and they went by the way that leads to the wilderness.

52:8. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king: and they overtook Zedekiah in the desert which is near Jericho: and all his companions were scattered from him.

52:9. When they had taken the king, they carried him to the king of Babylon to Reblatha, which is in the land of Emath: and he gave judgment upon him.



52:10. The king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: and he slew all the princes of Judah in Reblatha.

52:11. He put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters, and the king of Babylon brought him into Babylon, and he put him in prison till the day of his death.

52:12. In the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, the same is the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nabuzardan the general of the army, who stood before the king of Babylon in Jerusalem.

52:13. He burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great house he burnt with fire.

52:14. All the army of the Chaldeans that were with the general broke down all the wall of Jerusalem round about.

52:15. But Nabuzardan the general carried away captives some of the poor people, and of the rest of the common sort who remained in the city, and of the fugitives that were fled over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

52:16. But of the poor of the land, Nabuzardan the general left some for vinedressers, and for husbandmen.

52:17. The Chaldeans also broke in pieces the brazen pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the sea of brass that was in the house of the Lord: and they carried all the brass of them to Babylon.



52:18. They took the caldrons, and the fleshhooks, and the psalteries, and the bowls, and the little mortars, and all the brazen vessels that had been used in the ministry: and

52:19. The general took away the pitchers, and the censers, and the pots, and the basins, and the candlesticks, and the mortars, and the cups: as many as were of gold, in gold: and as many as were of silver, in silver:

52:20. and the two pillars, and one sea, and twelve oxen of brass that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made in the house of the Lord: there was no weight of the brass of all these vessels.

52:21. Concerning the pillars, one pillar was eighteen cubits high: and a cord of twelve cubits compassed it about: but the thickness thereof was four fingers, and it was hollow within.

'''52:22. Chapiters of brass were upon both: and the height of one chapiter was five cubits: and network, and pomegranates were upon the chapiters round about, all of brass. The same of the second pillar, and the pomegranates.'''

52:23. There were ninety-six pomegranates hanging down: and the pomegranates being a hundred in all, were compassed with network.

52:24. The general took Saraias the chief priest, and Sophonias the second priest, and the three keepers of the entry.

52:25. He also took out of the city one eunuch that was chief over the men of war: and seven men of them that were near the king's person, that were found in the city: and a scribe, an officer of the army who exercised the young soldiers: and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city.

52:26. Nabuzardan the general took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon, to Reblatha.

52:27. The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death in Reblatha, in the land of Emath: and Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

52:28. This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews.

52:29. In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred and thirty-two souls from Jerusalem.

'''52:30. In the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nabuzardan the general carried away of the Jews seven hundred and forty-five souls. So all the souls were four thousand six hundred.'''

52:31. It came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison.

Jehoiachin is the present day spelling for Joachin.

52:32. He spoke kindly to him, and he set his throne above the thrones of the kings that were with him in Babylon.

52:33. He changed his prison garments, and he ate bread before him always all the days of his life.

52:34. For his diet a continual provision was allowed him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion, until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

'Note: This page contains Chapters 27-52 of the Book of Jeremiah. Click here for Chapters 1-26.'