Listen, you who sit enthroned above the valley on a rocky plateau. I am opposed to you,’ says the Lord. ‘You boast, “No one can swoop down on us. No one can penetrate into our places of refuge.”

“‘People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?”

While you were feeling secure I gave you warning. But you said, “I refuse to listen to you.” That is the way you have acted from your earliest history onward. Indeed, you have never paid attention to me.

So I, Jeremiah, tell you, “Each of you people should say to his friend or his relative, ‘How did the Lord answer? Or what did the Lord say?’

So the prophet Jeremiah spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the people who were living in Jerusalem.

Over and over again the Lord has sent his servants the prophets to you. But you have not listened or paid attention.

So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand. I made all the nations to whom he sent me drink the wine of his wrath.

If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ‘You most certainly must drink it!

The Lord who rules over all says, ‘Disaster will soon come on one nation after another. A mighty storm of military destruction is rising up from the distant parts of the earth.’

Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing.

You must pay attention to the exhortations of my servants the prophets. I have sent them to you over and over again. But you have not paid any attention to them.

But correct the way you have been living and do what is right. Obey the Lord your God. If you do, the Lord will forgo destroying you as he threatened he would.

However, King Jehoiakim sent some men to Egypt, including Elnathan son of Achbor,

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah early in the reign of Josiah’s son, King Zedekiah of Judah.

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.

Do not listen to them. Be subject to the king of Babylon. Then you will continue to live. Why should this city be made a pile of rubble?’”

For the Lord who rules over all has already spoken about the two bronze pillars, the large bronze basin called ‘The Sea,’ and the movable bronze stands. He has already spoken about the rest of the valuable articles that are left in this city.

He has said, ‘They will be carried off to Babylon. They will remain there until it is time for me to show consideration for them again. Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’ I, the Lord, affirm this!”

Then the prophet Jeremiah responded to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the Lord’s temple.

From earliest times, the prophets who preceded you and me invariably prophesied war, disaster, and plagues against many countries and great kingdoms.