20 Jeremiah Persecuted by Pashhur

20:1 Now Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. ²Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the Lord. ³The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord does not call your name Pashhur, but Terror On Every Side. ⁴For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They shall fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon. He shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall strike them down with the sword. ⁵Moreover, I will give all the wealth of the city, all its gains, all its prized belongings, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon. ⁶And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. To Babylon you shall go, and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.”

⁷O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. ⁸For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. ⁹If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. ¹⁰For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.” ¹¹But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. ¹²O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind,^[1]let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.

¹³Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

¹⁴Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! ¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. ¹⁶Let that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, ¹⁷because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. ¹⁸Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?

[1] Hebrew kidneys

21 Jerusalem Will Fall to Nebuchadnezzar

21:1 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[2] 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.”

³Then Jeremiah said to them: ⁴“Thus you shall say to Zedekiah, ‘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. ⁵I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. ⁶And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. ⁷Afterward, 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. ⁹He 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. ¹⁰For 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.’

Message to the House of David

¹¹“And to the house of the king of Judah say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, ¹²O 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?’ ¹⁴I 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.”

[2] Hebrew Nebuchadrezzar, another spelling for Nebuchadnezzar (king of Babylon) occurring frequently from Jeremiah 21–52; this latter spelling is used throughout Jeremiah for consistency

22 22:1 Thus says the Lord: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, ²and 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. ³Thus 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. ⁴For 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. ⁵But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. ⁶For 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.^[3]⁷I 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?” ⁹And they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”’”

¹⁰Weep 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.

Message to the Sons of Josiah

¹¹For 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, ¹²but 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, ¹⁴who 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. ¹⁵Do 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. ¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? declares the Lord. ¹⁷But you have eyes and heart only for your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.” ¹⁸Therefore 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!’ ¹⁹With 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. ²¹I 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. ²²The 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. ²³O 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 ²⁵and 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. ²⁶I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. ²⁷But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”

²⁸Is 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? ²⁹O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord! ³⁰Thus 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.”

[3] Hebrew cities