21 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, 2 “Inquire of the LORD for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.”

3 Then Jeremiah said to them: “Thus you shall say to Zedekiah, 4 ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls. And I will bring them together into the midst of this city. 5 I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. 6 And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. 7 Afterward, declares the LORD, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives. He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword. He shall not pity them or spare them or have compassion.’

8 “And to this people you shall say: ‘Thus says the LORD: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. 9 He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war. 10 For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good, declares the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.’

11 “And to the house of the king of Judah say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, 12 O house of David! Thus says the LORD:

  “‘Execute justice in the morning,
    and deliver from the hand of the oppressor
    him who has been robbed,
  lest my wrath go forth like fire,
    and burn with none to quench it,
    because of your evil deeds.’”
13   “Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,
    O rock of the plain,
      declares the LORD;
  you who say, ‘Who shall come down against us,
    or who shall enter our habitations?’
14   I will punish you according to the fruit of your deeds,
      declares the LORD;
    I will kindle a fire in her forest,
    and it shall devour all that is around her.”

22 Thus says the LORD: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, 2 and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. 3 Thus says the LORD: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. 4 For if you will indeed obey this word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people. 5 But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation. 6 For thus says the LORD concerning the house of the king of Judah:

  “‘You are like Gilead to me,
    like the summit of Lebanon,
  yet surely I will make you a desert,
    an uninhabited city.
7   I will prepare destroyers against you,
    each with his weapons,
  and they shall cut down your choicest cedars
    and cast them into the fire.

8 “‘And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, “Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city?” 9 And they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”’”

10   Weep not for him who is dead,
    nor grieve for him,
  but weep bitterly for him who goes away,
    for he shall return no more
    to see his native land.

11 For thus says the LORD concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went away from this place: “He shall return here no more, 12 but in the place where they have carried him captive, there shall he die, and he shall never see this land again.”

13   “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
    and his upper rooms by injustice,
  who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing
    and does not give him his wages,
14   who says, ‘I will build myself a great house
    with spacious upper rooms,’
  who cuts out windows for it,
    paneling it with cedar
    and painting it with vermilion.
15   Do you think you are a king
    because you compete in cedar?
  Did not your father eat and drink
    and do justice and righteousness?
    Then it was well with him.
16   He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
    then it was well.
  Is not this to know me?
    declares the LORD.
17   But you have eyes and heart
    only for your dishonest gain,
  for shedding innocent blood,
    and for practicing oppression and violence.”

18 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

  “They shall not lament for him, saying,
    ‘Ah, my brother!’ or ‘Ah, sister!’
  They shall not lament for him, saying,
    ‘Ah, lord!’ or ‘Ah, his majesty!’
19   With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried,
    dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”
20   “Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,
    and lift up your voice in Bashan;
  cry out from Abarim,
    for all your lovers are destroyed.
21   I spoke to you in your prosperity,
    but you said, ‘I will not listen.’
  This has been your way from your youth,
    that you have not obeyed my voice.
22   The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds,
    and your lovers shall go into captivity;
  then you will be ashamed and confounded
    because of all your evil.
23   O inhabitant of Lebanon,
    nested among the cedars,
  how you will be pitied when pangs come upon you,
    pain as of a woman in labor!”

24 “As I live, declares the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off 25 and give you into the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. 27 But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”

28   Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot,
    a vessel no one cares for?
  Why are he and his children hurled and cast
    into a land that they do not know?
29   O land, land, land,
    hear the word of the LORD!
30   Thus says the LORD:
  “Write this man down as childless,
    a man who shall not succeed in his days,
  for none of his offspring shall succeed
    in sitting on the throne of David
    and ruling again in Judah.”

23 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the LORD. 3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD.

5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’

7 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 8 but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

9 Concerning the prophets:

  My heart is broken within me;
    all my bones shake;
  I am like a drunken man,
    like a man overcome by wine,
  because of the LORD
    and because of his holy words.
10   For the land is full of adulterers;
    because of the curse the land mourns,
    and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
  Their course is evil,
    and their might is not right.
11   “Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
    even in my house I have found their evil,
      declares the LORD.
12   Therefore their way shall be to them
    like slippery paths in the darkness,
    into which they shall be driven and fall,
  for I will bring disaster upon them
    in the year of their punishment,
      declares the LORD.
13   In the prophets of Samaria
    I saw an unsavory thing:
  they prophesied by Baal
    and led my people Israel astray.
14   But in the prophets of Jerusalem
    I have seen a horrible thing:
  they commit adultery and walk in lies;
    they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
    so that no one turns from his evil;
  all of them have become like Sodom to me,
    and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
15   Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets:
  “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food
    and give them poisoned water to drink,
  for from the prophets of Jerusalem
    ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

16 Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”

18   For who among them has stood in the council of the LORD
    to see and to hear his word,
    or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
19   Behold, the storm of the LORD!
    Wrath has gone forth,
  a whirling tempest;
    it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
20   The anger of the LORD will not turn back
    until he has executed and accomplished
    the intents of his heart.
  In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
21   “I did not send the prophets,
    yet they ran;
  I did not speak to them,
    yet they prophesied.
22   But if they had stood in my council,
    then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
  and they would have turned them from their evil way,
    and from the evil of their deeds.

23 “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD. 25 I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ 26 How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, 27 who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal? 28 Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD. 29 Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? 30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another. 31 Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who use their tongues and declare, ‘declares the LORD.’ 32 Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD.

33 “When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the LORD?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will cast you off, declares the LORD.’ 34 And as for the prophet, priest, or one of the people who says, ‘The burden of the LORD,’ I will punish that man and his household. 35 Thus shall you say, every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 36 But ‘the burden of the LORD’ you shall mention no more, for the burden is every man’s own word, and you pervert the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God. 37 Thus you shall say to the prophet, ‘What has the LORD answered you?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 38 But if you say, ‘The burden of the LORD,’ thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have said these words, “The burden of the LORD,” when I sent to you, saying, “You shall not say, ‘The burden of the LORD,’” 39 therefore, behold, I will surely lift you up and cast you away from my presence, you and the city that I gave to you and your fathers. 40 And I will bring upon you everlasting reproach and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.’”

— Jeremiah 21-23