But if you refuse to surrender, the Lord has shown me a vision of what will happen. Here is what I saw:

Johanan and all the officers of the troops that had been hiding in the open country came to Gedaliah at Mizpah.

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

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

“We will not listen to what you claim the Lord has spoken to us!

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah about the nations.

The people of Moab will be disappointed by their god Chemosh. They will be as disappointed as the people of Israel were when they put their trust in the calf god at Bethel.

The Lord spoke concerning Babylon and the land of Babylonia through the prophet Jeremiah.

Here is the official record of the number of people Nebuchadnezzar carried into exile: In the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

They have also built places of worship in a place called Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters by fire. That is something I never commanded them to do! Indeed, it never even entered my mind to command such a thing!

Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. Vent it on the peoples who do not worship you. For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. They have completely destroyed them and left their homeland in utter ruin.

Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors to keep when I brought them out of Egypt, that place which was like an iron-smelting furnace. I said at that time, “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement exactly as I commanded you. If you do, you will be my people and I will be your God.

They have gone back to the evil ways of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.

So I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you must worship other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.’”

You will lose your hold on the land which I gave to you as a permanent possession. I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you know nothing about. For you have made my anger burn like a fire that will never be put out.”

The Lord told me, “Go and stand in the People’s Gate through which the kings of Judah enter and leave the city. Then go and stand in all the other gates of the city of Jerusalem.

I will do so because these people have rejected me and have defiled this place. They have offered sacrifices in it to other gods which neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah knew anything about. They have filled it with the blood of innocent children.

Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’