So I will destroy this temple which I have claimed as my own, this temple that you are trusting to protect you. I will destroy this place that I gave to you and your ancestors, just like I destroyed Shiloh.

They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. These are things they adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground.

I will purify them from all the sin that they committed against me. I will forgive all their sins which they committed in rebelling against me.

He will come and attack Egypt. Those who are destined to die of disease will die of disease. Those who are destined to be carried off into exile will be carried off into exile. Those who are destined to die in war will die in war.

Cursed be the day I was born! May that day not be blessed when my mother gave birth to me.

If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this: “Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease. Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war. Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation. Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.”

The Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you.

“Take the shorts that you bought and are wearing and go at once to Perath. Bury the shorts there in a crack in the rocks.”

Now and then there would be something wrong with the pot he was molding from the clay with his hands. So he would rework the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit.

But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, I will cancel the destruction I intended to do to it.

Go out to the part of the Hinnom Valley which is near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Announce there what I tell you.

When he heard Jeremiah’s prophecy, he had the prophet flogged. Then he put him in the stocks which were at the Upper Gate of Benjamin in the Lord’s temple.

I will force you and your mother who gave you birth into exile. You will be exiled to a country where neither of you were born, and you will both die there.

How long will they go on plotting to make my people forget who I am through the dreams they tell one another? That is just as bad as what their ancestors did when they forgot who I am by worshiping the god Baal.

Let the prophet who has had a dream go ahead and tell his dream. Let the person who has received my message report that message faithfully. What is like straw cannot compare to what is like grain! I, the Lord, affirm it!

There is no reason why you and your people should die in war or from starvation or disease! That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.

So if a prophet prophesied peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

And all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use them as examples when they put a curse on anyone. They will say, “May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab whom the king of Babylon roasted to death in the fire!”

So Jeremiah remained confined in the courtyard of the guardhouse until the day Jerusalem was captured.The following events occurred when Jerusalem was captured.

Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him heard about all the atrocities that Ishmael son of Nethaniah had committed.