A Summary of Jeremiah’s Preaching

25 This is the message that came to Jeremiah concerning all of the people of Judah. This message came in the fourth year* that Jehoiakim was king of Judah. Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah. The fourth year of his time as king was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon. 2This is the message that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and all the people of Jerusalem: 3I have given you messages from the Lord again and again for these past 23 years. I have been a prophet since the 13th year that Josiah son of Amon was the king of Judah. I have spoken messages from the Lord to you from that time until today. But you have not listened. 4The Lord has sent his servants, the prophets, to you over and over again. But you have not listened to them. You have not paid any attention to them. 5Those prophets said, “Change your lives! Stop doing those bad things! If you change, then you can return to the land which the Lord gave you and your ancestors* long ago. He gave you this land to live in forever. 6Don’t follow other gods. Don’t serve or worship them. Don’t worship idols that some person has made. That only makes me angry at you. Doing this only hurts yourselves.”* 7“But you did not listen to me.” This message is from the Lord. “You worshiped idols that some person made. And that made me angry. And that only hurt you.” 8So, this is what the Lord All-Powerful says, “You have not listened to my messages. 9So I will soon send for all the family groups of the north.*” This message is from the Lord. “I will soon send for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He is my servant. I will bring those people against the land of Judah and against the people of Judah. I will bring them against all the nations around you too. I will destroy all of those countries. I will make those lands like an empty desert forever. People will see those countries, and whistle at how badly they were destroyed. ¹⁰I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and happiness in those places. There will be no more happy sounds of the brides and bridegrooms. I will take away the sound of people grinding meal. I will take away the light of the lamp. ¹¹That whole area will be an empty desert. All of those people will be slaves of the king of Babylon for 70 years. ¹²“But when the 70 years have passed, I will punish the king of Babylon. I will punish the nation of Babylon.” This message is from the Lord. “I will punish the land of the Babylonians for their sins. I will make that land a desert forever. ¹³I have said many bad things will happen to Babylon. All of those things will happen. Jeremiah preached about those foreign nations. And all of those warnings are written in this book. ¹⁴Yes, the people of Babylon will have to serve many nations and many great kings. I will give them the punishment they deserve for all the things they will do.”

Judgment on the Nations of the World

¹⁵The Lord, the God of Israel, said these things to me: “Jeremiah, take this cup of wine from my hand. It is the wine of my anger. I am sending you to different nations. Make all those nations drink from this cup. ¹⁶They will drink this wine. Then they will vomit and act like crazy people. They will do this because of the sword that I will soon send against them.” ¹⁷So I took the cup of wine from the Lord’s hand. I went to those nations and I made those people drink from the cup. ¹⁸I poured this wine for the people of Jerusalem and Judah. I made the kings and leaders of Judah drink from the cup. I did this so that they would become an empty desert. I did this so that place would be destroyed so badly that people would whistle about it and say curses about that place. And it happened—Judah is like that now! ¹⁹I also made Pharaoh king of Egypt drink from the cup. I made his officials, his important leaders, and all his people drink from the cup of the Lord’s anger. ²⁰I also made all the Arabs and all of the kings of the land of Uz drink from the cup. I also made all the kings of the land of the Philistines drink from the cup. These were the kings of the cities of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what remains of the city Ashdod. ²¹Then I made the people of Edom, Moab, and Ammon drink from the cup. ²²I made all the kings of Tyre and Sidon drink from the cup. I also made all the kings of the faraway countries drink from that cup. ²³I made the people of Dedan, Tema, and Buz drink from the cup. I made all those that cut their hair at their temples drink from the cup. ²⁴I made all the kings of Arabia drink from the cup. These kings live in the desert. ²⁵I made all the kings from Zimri, Elam, and Media drink from the cup. ²⁶I made all the kings of the north, those that were near and far, drink from the cup. I made them drink one after the other. I made all the kingdoms that are on earth drink from the cup of the anger of the Lord. But the king of Babylon will drink from this cup after all of these other nations. ²⁷“Jeremiah, say to those nations, this is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says, ‘Drink this cup of my anger. Get drunk from it and vomit! Fall down and don’t get up. Don’t get up because I am sending a sword to kill you.’ ²⁸“Those people will refuse to take the cup from your hand. They will refuse to drink it. But you will say to them, ‘The Lord All-Powerful says these things: You will indeed drink from this cup! ²⁹I am already making these bad things happen to Jerusalem, the city that is called by my name. Maybe you people think that you will not be punished. But you are wrong. You will be punished. I am calling out a sword to attack all the people of the earth.’” This message is from the Lord. ³⁰“Jeremiah, you will give them this message: ‘The Lord shouts from above. He shouts from his holy temple! The Lord shouts at his pasture (people)! His shouts are loud like the songs of people walking on grapes to make wine. ³¹The noise spreads to all the people on earth. What is all the noise about? The Lord is punishing the people from all the nations. The Lord told his arguments against the people. He judged the people. And now he is killing the evil people with a sword.’” This message is from the Lord. ³²This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: “Disasters will soon spread from country to country. They will come like a powerful storm to all the faraway places on earth!” ³³The dead bodies of those people will reach from one end of the country to the other. No person will cry for those dead people. No person will gather up their bodies and bury them. They will be left lying on the ground like dung. ³⁴Shepherds (leaders), you should be leading the sheep (people). Start crying you great leaders! Roll around on the ground in pain, you leaders of the sheep (people). Why? Because it is now time for your slaughter.* {I will scatter your sheep.} They will scatter everywhere, like pieces flying from a broken jar. ³⁵There will be no place for the shepherds to hide. Those leaders will not escape. ³⁶I hear the shepherds (leaders) shouting. I hear the leaders of the sheep (people) crying. The Lord is destroying their pastures (country). ³⁷Those peaceful pastures are like an empty desert. This happened because the Lord is angry. ³⁸The Lord is like a dangerous lion leaving his cave. The Lord is angry! And that anger will hurt those people. Their country will be an empty desert.

fourth year This was the year 605 B.C. ancestors Literally, “fathers,” meaning a person’s parents, grandparents, and all the people they are descended from. Doing this only hurts yourselves Following the ancient Greek translation. The Hebrew reads, “Then I will not hurt you.” north This refers to the army of Babylon coming from the north to attack the nation of Judah. slaughter Usually, this means to kill an animal and cut it into pieces of meat. But it often means to kill people like they are animals.

Jeremiah’s Lesson at the Temple

26 This message came from the Lord during the first year that Jehoiakim was king* of Judah. Jehoiakim was the son of King Josiah. ²The Lord said: “Jeremiah, stand in the temple* yard of the Lord. Give this message to all the people of Judah that are coming to worship at the temple of the Lord. Tell them everything that I tell you to speak. Don’t leave out any part of my message. ³Maybe they will listen and obey my message. Maybe they will stop living such evil lives. If they change, then I might change my mind about my plans to punish them. I am planning this punishment because of many bad things those people have done. ⁴You will say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: I gave my teachings to you. You must obey me and follow my teachings. ⁵You must listen to the things my servants say to you. (The prophets are my servants.) I have sent prophets to you again and again, but you did not listen to them. ⁶If you don’t obey me, then I will make my temple in Jerusalem just like my Holy Tent at Shiloh.* People all over the world will think of Jerusalem when they ask for bad things to happen to other cities.’” ⁷The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah say all of these words at the Lord’s temple.* ⁸Jeremiah finished speaking everything the Lord had commanded him to say to the people. Then the priests, the prophets, and all the people grabbed Jeremiah. They said, “You will die for saying such terrible things! ⁹How dare you preach such a thing in the name of the Lord! How dare you say that this temple will be destroyed like the one at Shiloh! How dare you say that Jerusalem will become a desert with no people living in it!” All the people gathered around Jeremiah in the temple of the Lord. ¹⁰Now the rulers of Judah heard about all of the things that were happening. So they came out of the king’s palace. They went up to the Lord’s temple. There, they took their places at the entrance of the New Gate. The New Gate is a gate leading to the Lord’s temple. ¹¹Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the rulers and all the other people. They said, “Jeremiah should be killed. He said bad things about Jerusalem. You heard him say those things.” ¹²Then Jeremiah spoke to all the rulers of Judah and all the other people. He said, “The Lord sent me to say these things about this temple and this city. Everything that you have heard is from the Lord. ¹³You people change your lives! You must start doing good things! You must obey the Lord your God. If you do that, then the Lord will change his mind. The Lord will not do the bad things he told you about. ¹⁴As for me, I am in your power. Do to me what you think is good and right. ¹⁵But if you kill me, be sure of one thing. You will be guilty of killing an innocent person. You will make this city and everyone that lives in it guilty, too. The Lord really did send me to you. The message you heard really is from the Lord.” ¹⁶Then the rulers and all the people spoke. Those people said to the priests and the prophets, “Jeremiah must not be killed. The things Jeremiah told us come from the Lord our God.” ¹⁷Then some of the elders (leaders) stood up and spoke to all the people. ¹⁸They said, “Micah the prophet was from the city of Moresheth. Micah was a prophet during the time that Hezekiah was king of Judah. Micah said these things to all the people of Judah: The Lord All-Powerful says: “Zion* will be destroyed. It will become a plowed field. Jerusalem will become a pile of rocks. Temple Mount will be an empty hill* overgrown with bushes.” Micah 3:12 ¹⁹“Hezekiah was the king of Judah. And Hezekiah didn’t kill Micah. None of the people of Judah killed Micah. You know that Hezekiah respected the Lord. He wanted to please the Lord. The Lord had said he would do bad things to Judah. But Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, and the Lord changed his mind. The Lord didn’t do those bad things. If we hurt Jeremiah, then we will bring many troubles on ourselves. And those troubles will be our own fault.” ²⁰In the past, there was another man that preached the Lord’s message. His name was Uriah. He was the son of a man named Shemaiah. Uriah was from the city of Kiriath Jearim. Uriah preached the same things against this city and this land as Jeremiah did. ²¹King Jehoiakim and his army officers and the leaders of Judah heard Uriah preach. They became angry. King Jehoiakim wanted to kill Uriah. But Uriah heard that Jehoiakim wanted to kill him. Uriah was afraid, so he escaped to the land of Egypt. ²²But King Jehoiakim sent a man named Elnathan and some other men to Egypt. Elnathan was the son of a man named Acbor. ²³Those men brought Uriah from Egypt. Then those men took Uriah to King Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim ordered Uriah to be killed with a sword. Uriah’s body was thrown into the burial place where poor people are buried. ²⁴There was an important man named Ahikam son of Shaphan. Ahikam supported Jeremiah. So Ahikam kept Jeremiah from being killed by the priests and prophets.

first year that Jehoiakim was king This was 609 B.C. temple The special building in Jerusalem for Jewish worship. my Holy Tent at Shiloh The holy place at Shiloh was probably destroyed during the time of Samuel. See Jer. 7 and 1 Sam. 4. Zion The southeast part of the mountain Jerusalem is built on. Sometimes it means the people of God living in Jerusalem. empty hill Or, “high place,” a term usually used for local shrines (places for worship) where people often worshiped idols.