You may feel as secure as a bird nesting in the cedars of Lebanon. But oh how you will groan when the pains of judgment come on you. They will be like those of a woman giving birth to a baby.

The land of Judah will be inhabited by people who live in its towns as well as by farmers and shepherds with their flocks.

We have not built any houses to live in. We do not own any vineyards, fields, or crops.

We have lived in tents. We have obeyed our ancestor Jonadab and done exactly as he commanded us.

They said to him, “Please sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch sat down and read it to them.

Since it was the ninth month of the year, the king was sitting in his winter quarters. A fire was burning in the firepot in front of him.

So they pulled Jeremiah up from the cistern with ropes. Jeremiah, however, still remained confined to the courtyard of the guardhouse.

They set out to go to Egypt to get away from the Babylonians, but stopped at Geruth Kimham near Bethlehem.

“You must not disobey the Lord your God by saying, ‘We will not stay in this land.’

I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt with war, starvation, and disease just as I punished Jerusalem.

Set up a gravestone for Moab, for it will certainly be laid in ruins! Its cities will be laid waste and become uninhabited.”

You who live in Aroer, stand by the road and watch. Question the man who is fleeing and the woman who is escaping. Ask them, ‘What has happened?’

Leave your towns, you inhabitants of Moab. Go and live in the cliffs. Be like a dove that makes its nest high on the sides of a ravine.

“Destructive forces will come against the Babylonians,” says the Lord. “They will come against the people who inhabit Babylonia, against her leaders and her men of wisdom.

Babylon will become a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, a place where no one lives.

The inhabited towns will be left in ruins and the land will be devastated. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

You sat on a magnificent couch, with a table arranged in front of it where you placed my incense and my olive oil.

The leaders of Sidon and Arvad were your rowers; your skilled men, O Tyre, were your captains.

All the inhabitants of the coastlands are shocked at you, and their kings are horribly afraid – their faces are troubled.

I will turn you into a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord.