The prophets will prove to be full of wind. The Lord has not spoken through them. So, let what they say happen to them.’”

Then the dead bodies of these people will be left on the ground for the birds and wild animals to eat. There will not be any survivors to scare them away.

Not one of them will survive. I will bring disaster on those men from Anathoth who threatened you. A day of reckoning is coming for them.”

The people I call my own have turned on me like a lion in the forest. They have roared defiantly at me. So I will treat them as though I hate them.

But after I have uprooted the people of those nations, I will relent and have pity on them. I will restore the people of each of those nations to their own lands and to their own country.

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah about the drought.

They are dismayed because the ground is cracked because there has been no rain in the land. The farmers, too, are dismayed and bury their faces in their hands.

Even the doe abandons her newborn fawn in the field because there is no grass.

You have been the object of Israel’s hopes. You have saved them when they were in trouble. Why have you become like a resident foreigner in the land? Why have you become like a traveler who only stops in to spend the night?

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

Lord, you coerced me into being a prophet, and I allowed you to do it. You overcame my resistance and prevailed over me. Now I have become a constant laughingstock. Everyone ridicules me.

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

For he did not kill me before I came from the womb, making my pregnant mother’s womb my grave forever.

The descendants of Jacob will enjoy their former privileges. Their community will be reestablished in my favor and I will punish all who try to oppress them.

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah a second time while he was still confined in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

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

The following events also occurred while the Babylonian forces had temporarily withdrawn from Jerusalem because the army of Pharaoh was coming.

On the day after Gedaliah had been murdered, before anyone even knew about it,

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah about the nations.

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