42 While they were at Geruth Kimham, Johanan and a man named Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah went to Jeremiah the prophet. All the army officers went with Johanan and Jezaniah. All the people, from the least important to the most important person, went to Jeremiah. ²All those people said to him, “Jeremiah, please listen to what we ask. Pray to the Lord your God for all these people that are survivors* from the family of Judah. Jeremiah, you can see that there are not many of us left. At one time there were many of us. ³Jeremiah, pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.” ⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet answered, “I understand the things you want me to do. I will pray to the Lord your God, like you asked me to do. I will tell you everything the Lord says. I will not hide anything from you.” ⁵Then those people said to Jeremiah, “If we don’t do everything the Lord your God tells us, then we hope the Lord will be a true and faithful witness against us. We know the Lord your God will send you to tell us what to do. ⁶It does not matter if we like the message or if we don’t like the message. We will obey the Lord our God. We are sending you to the Lord for a message from him. We will obey what he says. Then good things will happen to us. Yes, we will obey the Lord our God.” ⁷At the end of ten days, the message from the Lord came to Jeremiah. ⁸Then Jeremiah called together Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers that were with him. Jeremiah also called all the other people together, from the least important to the most important person. ⁹Then Jeremiah said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of the people of Israel, says. You sent me to him. I asked the Lord what you wanted me to ask. This is what the Lord says: ¹⁰‘If you people will stay in Judah, I will make you strong—I will not destroy you. I will plant you, and I will not pull you up. I will do this because I am sad about the terrible things that I made happen to you. ¹¹Now you are afraid of the king of Babylon. But don’t be afraid of him. Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon,’ this is the message of the Lord, ‘because I am with you. I will save you. I will rescue you. He will not get his hands on you. ¹²I will be kind to you. And the king of Babylon will also treat you with mercy. And he will bring you back to your land.’ ¹³But you might say, ‘We will not stay in Judah.’ If you say that, you will disobey the Lord your God. ¹⁴And you might say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt. We will not be bothered with war in that place. We will not hear the trumpets of war. And in Egypt we will not be hungry.’ ¹⁵If you say those things, then listen to the message of the Lord, you survivors* from Judah. This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says: ‘If you decide to go to live in Egypt, then these things will happen: ¹⁶You are afraid of the sword of war, but it will defeat you there. And you are worried about hunger, but you will be hungry in Egypt. You will die there. ¹⁷Every person that decides to go live in Egypt will die by a sword, or hunger, or terrible sickness. Not one person that goes to Egypt will survive. Not one of them will escape the terrible things that I will bring to them.’ ¹⁸“The Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says: ‘I showed my anger against Jerusalem. I punished the people that lived in Jerusalem. In the same way, I will show my anger against every person that goes to Egypt. People will use you as an example when they ask for bad things to happen to other people. You will become like a curse word. People will be ashamed of you. People will insult you. And you will never see Judah again.’ ¹⁹“Survivors* of Judah, the Lord told you: ‘Don’t go to Egypt.’ I warn you right now, ²⁰you people are making a mistake that will cause your deaths. You people sent me to the Lord your God. You said to me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us everything the Lord says to do. We will obey the Lord.’ ²¹So today, I have told you the message from the Lord. But you have not obeyed the Lord your God. You have not done all that he sent me to tell you to do. ²²So now, be sure you understand this: You people want to go live in Egypt. But these things will happen to you in Egypt: You will die by a sword, or hunger, or terrible sickness.”

survivors People that escaped some disaster.

43 So Jeremiah finished telling the people the message from the Lord their God. Jeremiah told them everything that the Lord had sent him to tell the people. ²Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and some other men were proud and stubborn. Those people became angry at Jeremiah. Those men said to Jeremiah, “Jeremiah, you are lying! The Lord our God didn’t send you to say to us, ‘You people must not go to Egypt to live there.’ ³Jeremiah, we think that Baruch son of Neriah is encouraging you to be against us. He wants you to give us to the Babylonian people. He wants you to do this so they can kill us. Or he wants you to do this so that they can make us captives* and carry us to Babylon.” ⁴So Johanan, the army officers, and all the people disobeyed the Lord’s command. The Lord had commanded them to stay in Judah. ⁵But instead of obeying the Lord, Johanan and the army officers took those survivors* from Judah to Egypt. In the past, the enemy had taken those survivors to other countries. But they had come back to Judah. ⁶Now, Johanan and all the army officers took all the men, women, and children and led them to Egypt. Among those people were the king’s daughters. (Nebuzaradan had put Gedaliah in charge of those people. Nebuzaradan was the commander of the king of Babylon’s special guards.) Johanan also took Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah. ⁷Those people didn’t listen to the Lord. So all those people went to Egypt. They went to the town of Tahpanhes.* ⁸In the town of Tahpanhes, Jeremiah received this message from the Lord: ⁹“Jeremiah, get some large stones. Take them and bury them in the clay and brick sidewalk in front of Pharaoh’s official building in Tahpanhes. Do this while the men of Judah are watching you. ¹⁰Then say to those men of Judah that are watching you: ‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: I will send for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, to come here. He is my servant. And I will set his throne over these stones I have buried here. Nebuchadnezzar will spread his canopy* above these stones. ¹¹Nebuchadnezzar will come here and attack Egypt. He will bring death to those that are to die. He will bring captivity to those that are to be taken captive. And he will bring the sword to those that are to be killed with a sword. ¹²Nebuchadnezzar will start a fire in the temples of the false gods of Egypt. He will burn those temples and he will take those idols away. A shepherd picks the bugs and stickers off of his clothes to make them clean. In the same way, Nebuchadnezzar will pick Egypt clean. Then he will safely leave Egypt. ¹³Nebuchadnezzar will destroy the memorial stones* that are in the temple of the Sun god* in Egypt. And he will burn down the temples of the false gods of Egypt.’”

captives People that were taken away like prisoners. survivors People that escaped some disaster. Tahpanhes A town in northeastern Egypt. canopy A temporary covering used for shade. It is like a tent without sides. memorial stones Stones that were set up to help people remember something special. In ancient Israel, people often set up stones as special places to worship false gods. Sun god This was the most important god in Egypt.

The Lord’s Messages to the People of Judah in Egypt

44 Jeremiah received a message from the Lord. This message was for all the people of Judah living in Egypt. The message was for the people of Judah living in the towns of Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and southern Egypt. This was the message: ²The Lord All- Powerful, the God of Israel, says, “You people saw the terrible happenings that I brought on the city of Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah. Those towns are empty piles of stones today. ³Those places were destroyed because the people living in them did evil things. Those people gave sacrifices to other gods —and that made me angry! Your people and your ancestors* did not worship those gods in the past. ⁴I sent my prophets to those people again and again. Those prophets were my servants. Those prophets spoke my message and said to the people, ‘Don’t do this terrible thing. I hate for you to worship idols.’ ⁵But those people didn’t listen to the prophets. They didn’t pay attention to those prophets. Those people didn’t stop doing wicked things. They didn’t stop making sacrifices to other gods. ⁶So, I showed my anger against those people. I punished the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. My anger made Jerusalem and the towns of Judah the empty piles of stone they are today.” ⁷So, the Lord God All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “Why are you hurting yourselves by continuing to worship idols? You are separating the men and women, the children and babies from the family of Judah. And so you leave yourselves without any survivors* from the family of Judah. ⁸Why do you people want to make me angry by making idols? Now you are living in Egypt. And now you are making me angry by offering sacrifices to the false gods of Egypt. You people will destroy yourselves. It will be your own fault. You will make yourselves something that people of other nations will speak evil of. And all the other nations on the earth will make fun of you. ⁹Have you forgotten about the wicked things your ancestors* did? And have you forgotten about the wicked things the kings and queens of Judah did? Have you forgotten about the wicked things you and your wives did in Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰Even to this day, the people of Judah have not made themselves humble. They have not shown any respect for me. And those people have not followed my teachings. They have not obeyed the laws I gave you and your ancestors.*” ¹¹So, this is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “I have decided to make terrible things happen to you. I will destroy the whole family of Judah. ¹²There were a few survivors* from Judah. Those people came here to Egypt. But I will destroy those few survivors from the family of Judah. They will be killed with swords or die from hunger. They will be something that people of other nations will speak evil about. Other nations will be afraid at what happened to those people. Those people will become a curse word. Other nations will insult those people of Judah. ¹³I will punish those people that have gone to live in Egypt. I will use swords, hunger, and terrible sicknesses to punish them. I will punish those people just like I punished the city of Jerusalem. ¹⁴Not one of the few survivors of Judah that have gone to live in Egypt will escape my punishment. None of them will survive to come back to Judah. Those people want to come back to Judah and live there. But not one of those people will go back to Judah, except maybe a few people that escape.” ¹⁵Many of the women of Judah that lived in Egypt were making sacrifices to other gods. Their husbands knew it, but didn’t stop them. There was a large group of people of Judah meeting together. They were the people of Judah that were living in southern Egypt. The husbands of those women that were making sacrifices to other gods said to Jeremiah, ¹⁶“We will not listen to the message from the Lord that you spoke to us. ¹⁷We promised to make sacrifices to the queen of heaven.* And we will do everything we promised. We will offer sacrifices and pour out drink offerings in worship to her. We did that in the past. And our ancestors, our kings, and our officials did that in the past. All of us did those things in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At the time we worshiped the Queen of Heaven, we had plenty of food. We were successful. Nothing bad happened to us. ¹⁸But then we stopped making sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven. And we stopped pouring out drink offerings to her. Since we have stopped doing those things in worship to her, we have had problems. Our people have been killed by swords and hunger.” ¹⁹Then the women spoke up.* They said to Jeremiah, “Our husbands knew what we were doing. We had their permission to make sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven. We had their permission to pour out drink offerings to her. Our husbands also knew that we were making cakes that looked like her.” ²⁰Then Jeremiah spoke to all those men and women. He spoke to the people that had just said those things. ²¹Jeremiah said to those people, “The Lord remembered that you made sacrifices in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. You and your ancestors,* your kings, your officials, and the people of the land did that. The Lord remembered what you had done, and thought about that. ²²Then the Lord could not be patient with you any longer. The Lord hated the terrible things you did. So the Lord made your country an empty desert. No person lives there now. Other people say bad things about that country. ²³All of those bad things happened to you because you made sacrifices to other gods. You sinned against the Lord. You didn’t obey the Lord. You didn’t follow his teachings or the laws he gave you. You didn’t keep your part of the Agreement.”* ²⁴Then Jeremiah spoke to all those men and women. Jeremiah said, “All you people of Judah that are now in Egypt, listen to the message from the Lord: ²⁵The Lord All- Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says: ‘You women did what you said you would do. You said, “We will keep the promises we made. We promised to make sacrifices and pour out drink offerings to the queen of heaven.*” So, go ahead. Do the things you promised you would do. Keep your promises. ²⁶But, listen to the message from the Lord, all you people of Judah that are living in Egypt: ‘I use my great name and make this promise: I promise none of the people of Judah that are now living in Egypt will ever again use my name to make promises. They will never again say, “As surely as the Lord lives,” ²⁷I am watching over those people of Judah. But I am not watching over them to take care of them. I am watching over them to hurt them. The people of Judah that live in Egypt will die from hunger and be killed by swords. They will continue to die until they are finished. ²⁸Some people of Judah will escape being killed by the sword. They will come back to Judah from Egypt. But there will be very few people of Judah that escape. Then those survivors* of Judah that came to live in Egypt will know whose word will come true. They will know whether my word or their word came true. ²⁹I will give you people proof’—this is the message of the Lord—‘that I will punish you here in Egypt. Then you will know for sure that my promises to hurt you will really happen. ³⁰This will be your proof that I will do what I say.’ This is what the Lord says: ‘Pharaoh Hophra is the king of Egypt. His enemies want to kill him. I will give Pharaoh Hophra to his enemies. Zedekiah was the king of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar was Zedekiah’s enemy. And I gave Zedekiah to his enemy. In the same way, I will give Pharaoh Hophra to his enemy.’”

memorial stones Stones that were set up to help people remember something special. In ancient Israel, people often set up stones as special places to worship false gods. Sun God This was the most important god in Egypt. ancestors Literally, “fathers,” meaning a person’s parents, grandparents, and all the people they are descended from. survivors People that escaped some disaster. queen of heaven Probably the false god Astarte. She was the goddess of sex and war. People in Mesopotamia worshiped her. They thought she was the planet Venus, which looks like a star in the sky. Then the women spoke up This is from the ancient Greek translation. The Hebrew does not have this sentence. ancestors Literally, “fathers,” meaning a person’s parents, grandparents, and all the people they are descended from. Agreement This is probably the Law of Moses, the Agreement between God and the people of Israel. survivors People that escaped some disaster. Here this means the Jewish people that survived the destruction of Judah and Israel by its enemy armies.

A Message to Baruch

45 Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah. In the fourth year Jehoiakim was king of Judah,* Jeremiah the prophet told these things to Baruch son of Neriah. Baruch wrote these things on a scroll.* This is what Jeremiah said to Baruch: ²“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you: ³‘Baruch, you have said: It is very bad for me. The Lord has given me sorrow along with my pain. I am very tired. I am worn out because of my suffering. I can’t find rest.’ ⁴Jeremiah, say this to Baruch: ‘This is what the Lord says: I will tear down what I have built. And I will pull up what I have planted. I will do that everywhere in Judah. ⁵Baruch, you are looking for great things for yourself. But don’t look for those things. Don’t look for them, because I will make terrible things happen to all the people.’ The Lord said these things. ‘You will have to go many places. But I will let you escape alive wherever you go.’”

fourth year … Judah This was about 605 B.C. scroll A long roll of leather or papyrus (paper) used for writing books, letters, and legal documents.