“The Lord God of Israel says, ‘Write everything that I am about to tell you in a scroll.

All your allies have abandoned you. They no longer have any concern for you. For I have attacked you like an enemy would. I have chastened you cruelly. For your wickedness is so great and your sin is so much.

Then I will reply, ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north. I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth. Blind and lame people will come with them, so will pregnant women and women about to give birth. A vast throng of people will come back here.

In the tenth year that Zedekiah was ruling over Judah the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. That was the same as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

“After I had given the copies of the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord,

You kept the promise that you swore on oath to their ancestors. You gave them a land flowing with milk and honey.

Therefore I, the Lord, say: ‘I will indeed hand this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. They will capture it.

They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. I tried over and over again to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction.

I will give them a single-minded purpose to live in a way that always shows respect for me. They will want to do that for their own good and the good of the children who descend from them.

“I, the Lord, affirm: ‘The time will certainly come when I will fulfill my gracious promise concerning the nations of Israel and Judah.

“The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. ‘I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. It stipulated,

I will hand them over to their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah when Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah.

Yes, the descendants of Jonadab son of Rechab have carried out the orders that their ancestor gave them. But you people have not obeyed me!

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah.

Micaiah told them everything he had heard Baruch read from the scroll in the hearing of the people.

Baruch answered, “Yes, they came from his own mouth. He dictated all these words to me and I wrote them down in ink on this scroll.”

The king did not even listen to Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah, who had urged him not to burn the scroll.

At that time the Babylonian forces had temporarily given up their siege against Jerusalem. They had had it under siege, but withdrew when they heard that the army of Pharaoh had set out from Egypt.)

Then Jeremiah asked King Zedekiah, “What crime have I committed against you, or the officials who serve you, or the people of Judah? What have I done to make you people throw me into prison?