David’s House under Judgment and the Promise of a Righteous King

Jeremiah 21

21:1The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, saying,

21:2“Please inquire of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may withdraw from us.”

21:3Then Jeremiah said to them, “Tell Zedekiah:

21:4‘The LORD, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls; and I will gather them into the middle of this city.

21:5I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation.

21:6I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal. They will die of a great pestilence.

21:7Afterward,” says the LORD, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, even those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. He will strike them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them, have pity, or have mercy.”’

21:8“You shall say to this people, ‘The LORD says: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.

21:9He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, but he who goes out and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he will live, and he will escape with his life.

21:10For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good,” says the LORD. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.”’

21:11“Concerning the house of the king of Judah, hear the LORD’s word:

21:12House of David, the LORD says, ‘Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

21:13Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain,’ says the LORD. ‘You that say, “Who would come down against us?” or, “Who would enter into our homes?”

21:14I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,’ says the LORD; ‘and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it will devour all that is around her.’”

Jeremiah 22

22:1The LORD said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word there:

22:2‘Hear the LORD’s word, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne—you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.

22:3The LORD says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place.

22:4For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses—they, their servants, and their people.

22:5But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says the LORD, “that this house will become a desolation.”’”

22:6For the LORD says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

22:7I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons, and they will cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.

22:8“Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this great city?’

22:9Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God, worshiped other gods, and served them.’”

22:10Don’t weep for the dead. Don’t bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he will return no more, and not see his native country.

22:11For the LORD says touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went out of this place: “He won’t return there any more.

22:12But he will die in the place where they have led him captive. He will see this land no more.”

22:13“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor’s service without wages, and doesn’t give him his hire;

22:14who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,’ and cuts out windows for himself, with a cedar ceiling, and painted with red.

22:15“Should you reign because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn’t your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him.

22:16He judged the cause of the poor and needy; so then it was well. Wasn’t this to know me?” says the LORD.

22:17But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”

22:18Therefore the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’

22:19He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

22:20“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed.

22:21I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice.

22:22The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

22:23Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!

22:24“As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, I would still pluck you from there.

22:25I would give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

22:26I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die.

22:27But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.”

22:28Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know?

22:29O earth, earth, earth, hear the LORD’s word!

22:30The LORD says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne and ruling in Judah.”

Jeremiah 23

23:1“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the LORD.

23:2Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says against the shepherds who feed my people: “You have scattered my flock, driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings,” says the LORD.

23:3“I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply.

23:4I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them. They will no longer be afraid or dismayed, neither will any be lacking,” says the LORD.

23:5“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will raise to David a righteous Branch; and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in the land.

23:6In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely. This is his name by which he will be called: The LORD our righteousness.

23:7“Therefore, behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that they will no more say, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’

23:8but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up and who led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will dwell in their own land.”

23:9Concerning the prophets: My heart within me is broken. All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the LORD, and because of his holy words.

23:10“For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

23:11for both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found their wickedness,” says the LORD.

23:12Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says the LORD.

23:13“I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.

23:14In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”

23:15Therefore the LORD of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

23:16The LORD of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.

23:17They say continually to those who despise me, ‘The LORD has said, “You will have peace;”’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, ‘No evil will come on you.’

23:18For who has stood in the council of the LORD, that he should perceive and hear his word? Who has listened to my word, and heard it?

23:19Behold, the LORD’s storm, his wrath, has gone out. Yes, a whirling storm! It will burst on the head of the wicked.

23:20The LORD’s anger will not return until he has executed and performed the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it perfectly.

23:21I didn’t send these prophets, yet they ran. I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied.

23:22But if they had stood in my council, then they would have caused my people to hear my words, and would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

23:23“Am I a God at hand,” says the LORD, “and not a God afar off?

23:24Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says the LORD. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD.

23:25“I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’

23:26How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own heart?

23:27They intend to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they each tell his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal.

23:28The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat?” says the LORD.

23:29“Isn’t my word like fire?” says the LORD; “and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

23:30“Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who each steal my words from his neighbor.

23:31Behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who use their tongues, and say, ‘He says.’

23:32Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams,” says the LORD, “who tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting; yet I didn’t send them or command them. They don’t profit this people at all,” says the LORD.

23:33“When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, asks you, saying, ‘What is the message from the LORD?’ Then you shall tell them, ‘“What message? I will cast you off,” says the LORD.’

23:34As for the prophet, the priest, and the people, who say, ‘The message from the LORD,’ I will even punish that man and his household.

23:35You will say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ and, ‘What has the LORD said?’

23:36You will mention the message from the LORD no more, for every man’s own word has become his message; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of Armies, our God.

23:37You will say to the prophet, ‘What has the LORD answered you?’ and, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’

23:38Although you say, ‘The message from the LORD,’ therefore the LORD says: ‘Because you say this word, “The message from the LORD,” and I have sent to you, telling you not to say, “The message from the LORD,”

23:39therefore behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off with the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, away from my presence.

23:40I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which will not be forgotten.’”

Jeremiah 24

24:1The LORD showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before the LORD’s temple, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

24:2One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

24:3Then the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that they can’t be eaten.”

24:4The LORD’s word came to me, saying,

24:5“The LORD, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, as good.

24:6For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up.

24:7I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.

24:8“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

24:9I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.

24:10I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

Jeremiah 25

25:1The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (this was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon),

25:2which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem:

25:3From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, the LORD’s word has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened.

25:4The LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear),

25:5saying, “Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forever more.

25:6Don’t go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and don’t provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; then I will do you no harm.”

25:7“Yet you have not listened to me,” says the LORD, “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.”

25:8Therefore the LORD of Armies says: “Because you have not heard my words,

25:9behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

25:10Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

25:11This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

25:12“It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says the LORD, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever.

25:13I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.

25:14For many nations and great kings will make bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.”

25:15For the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.

25:16They will drink, and reel back and forth, and be insane, because of the sword that I will send among them.”

25:17Then I took the cup at the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom the LORD had sent me:

25:18Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today;

25:19Pharaoh king of Egypt, with his servants, his princes, and all his people;

25:20and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;

25:21Edom, Moab, and the children of Ammon;

25:22and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea;

25:23Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who have the corners of their beard cut off;

25:24and all the kings of Arabia, all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the wilderness;

25:25and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes;

25:26and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth. The king of Sheshach will drink after them.

25:27“You shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.”’

25:28It shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then you shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies says: “You shall surely drink.

25:29For, behold, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You will not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of Armies.”’

25:30“Therefore prophesy against them all these words, and tell them, “‘The LORD will roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation. He will mightily roar against his fold. He will give a shout, as those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.

25:31A noise will come even to the end of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations. He will enter into judgment with all flesh. As for the wicked, he will give them to the sword,”’ says the LORD.”

25:32The LORD of Armies says, “Behold, evil will go out from nation to nation, and a great storm will be raised up from the uttermost parts of the earth.”

25:33The slain of the LORD will be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They won’t be lamented. They won’t be gathered or buried. They will be dung on the surface of the ground.

25:34Wail, you shepherds, and cry. Wallow in dust, you leader of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions have fully come, and you will fall like fine pottery.

25:35The shepherds will have no way to flee. The leader of the flock will have no escape.

25:36A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the leader of the flock, for the LORD destroys their pasture.

25:37The peaceful folds are brought to silence because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

25:38He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land has become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppression, and because of his fierce anger.