Neither he nor any of his attendants showed any alarm when they heard all that had been read. Nor did they tear their clothes to show any grief or sorrow.

To this day your people have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded you and your ancestors.’

Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there. Ostriches will dwell in it too. But no people will ever live there again. No one will dwell there for all time to come.

Do you people think that I am some local deity and not the transcendent God?” the Lord asks.

“You should fear me!” says the Lord. “You should tremble in awe before me! I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea, a permanent barrier that it can never cross. Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail. They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.”

But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’”

They will attack you but they will not be able to overcome you, for I will be with you to rescue you,” says the Lord.

But your ancestors did not listen to me nor pay attention to me. They became obstinate and were more wicked than even their own forefathers.’”

“Do not get married and do not have children here in this land.

I will scatter them before their enemies like dust blowing in front of a burning east wind. I will turn my back on them and not look favorably on them when disaster strikes them.”

So, now the Lord says, ‘You have not listened to me. But you have made me angry by the things that you have done. Thus you have brought harm on yourselves.’

(Now Jeremiah had not yet been put in prison. So he was still free to come and go among the people as he pleased.

Then Zedekiah told Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know about the conversation we have had. If you do, you will die.

This day I have told you what he said. But you do not want to obey the Lord by doing what he sent me to tell you.

I, the Lord, affirm that I know how arrogant they are. But their pride is ill-founded. Their boastings will prove to be false.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city was so severe the residents had no food.

They did not ask: ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of drought and deep darkness, through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?’

You also have done all these things, says the Lord, and I have spoken to you over and over again. But you have not listened! You have refused to respond when I called you to repent!

Then the Lord said to me, “Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! I did not send them. I did not commission them. I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, and the delusions of their own mind.

They will be like a tree planted near a stream whose roots spread out toward the water. It has nothing to fear when the heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no need to be concerned in a year of drought. It does not stop bearing fruit.