All this will happen because the Lord said, “The whole land will be desolate; however, I will not completely destroy it.

So take warning, Jerusalem, or I will abandon you in disgust and make you desolate, a place where no one can live.”

If you stop doing these things, I will allow you to continue to live in this land which I gave to your ancestors as a lasting possession.

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.

The Lord is the one who by his power made the earth. He is the one who by his wisdom established the world. And by his understanding he spread out the skies.

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 people of Judah are in mourning. The people in her cities are pining away. They lie on the ground expressing their sorrow. Cries of distress come up to me from Jerusalem.

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.

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?

The Lord continued, “In every town in the land I will purge them like straw blown away by the wind. I will destroy my people. I will kill off their children. I will do so because they did not change their behavior.

I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you know nothing about. For my anger is like a fire that will burn against you.”

So their land will become an object of horror. People will forever hiss out their scorn over it. All who pass that way will be filled with horror and will shake their heads in derision.

You will never come back to this land to which you will long to return!”

Then some of the elders of Judah stepped forward and spoke to all the people gathered there. They said,

I will take delight in doing good to them. I will faithfully and wholeheartedly plant them firmly in the land.’

In those days and at that time I will raise up for them a righteous descendant of David. “‘He will do what is just and right in the land.

Jeremiah started to leave Jerusalem to go to the territory of Benjamin. He wanted to make sure he got his share of the property that was being divided up among his family there.

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

They went on to Egypt because they refused to obey the Lord, and came to Tahpanhes.

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